Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver , with trace amounts of copper and other metals. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. It has been produced artificially and is also known as " green gold ".
93-586: Wadi Qana ( Arabic : وادي قانا , romanized : wādī qānā , Hebrew : נחל קנה , romanized : Nahal Qana ) is a wadi with an intermittent stream meandering westwards from Huwara , south of Nablus , in the West Bank , Palestine , down to Jaljulia in Israel , from where it flows into the Yarkon River , of which it is a tributary . Wadi Qana begins south of Mount Gerizim near
186-572: A 15 metre long tunnel, which then opened up into a 500 square metre subterranean hall. Over several years, a team of Israeli archaeologists led by Avi Gopher excavated the site. Three strata were brought to light, indicating it had undergone successive occupation from the 6th millennium BCE, beginning with the Yarmukian culture , through to the Chalcolithic , down to the early Bronze Age . The Chalcolithic remains were particularly rich, with
279-485: A cemetery yielding up, aside from ossuaries , pithoi , churns and varieties of creamware , 8 ring-shaped objects, mostly cast from electrum , with a 70% gold and 30% silver content. The archaeologists opined that the most probable source for the gold ingots was Egypt , where ring-shaped metallic valuables are attested from pictograms of imperial trade. Those in the Wadi Qana cave are the first known examples from
372-575: 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
465-435: 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
558-1081: 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
651-458: A hamlet with rock structures adjacent to the stream, and known as Wadi Qana. In 1926, the mandate government declared a nature reserve comprising 30,000 dunums of natural forest within the village boundaries of Deir Istiya in Wady Kanah. In 1943, this reserve was abolished and instead four forest reserves, Wad Qana and Wad Qana South, East and West, totalling about 12,000 dunums in
744-487: 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
837-690: 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
930-426: A one stater coin, were minted as well. Because of variation in the composition of electrum, it was difficult to determine the exact worth of each coin. Widespread trading was hampered by this problem, as the intrinsic value of each electrum coin could not be easily determined. This suggests that one reason for the invention of coinage in that area was to increase the profits from seigniorage by issuing currency with
1023-594: 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
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#17327657150371116-462: 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",
1209-470: 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
1302-455: A strong blood feud , and that the people of Zakur moved first to Kafr Thulth and, finding no good land available there, then spread out to dwell in five hamlets adjacent to Wadi Qana. The dominant group at Kafr Thulth itself, those with the best pastures, are the Gharaba family, who also own the best land in Wadi Qana's tributaries. Down to the mid-1980s, 50 families lived in the wadi itself, in
1395-507: 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
1488-507: 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
1581-443: A weight of about 14.1 grams (0.50 oz)—totaled one stater, about one month's pay for a soldier. To complement the stater, fractions were made: the trite (third), the hekte (sixth), and so forth, including 1 ⁄ 24 of a stater, and even down to 1 ⁄ 48 and 1 ⁄ 96 of a stater. The 1 ⁄ 96 stater was about 0.14 grams (0.0049 oz) to 0.15 grams (0.0053 oz). Larger denominations, such as
1674-476: 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
1767-737: 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
1860-590: 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
1953-559: 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
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#17327657150372046-478: 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
2139-408: 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
2232-472: 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
2325-574: 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
2418-855: 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
2511-414: Is sometimes found with traces of platinum, copper and other metals. The name is mostly applied informally to compositions between 20–80% gold and 80–20% silver, but these are strictly called gold or silver depending on the dominant element. Analysis of the composition of electrum in ancient Greek coinage dating from about 600 BC shows that the gold content was about 55.5% in the coinage issued by Phocaea . In
2604-585: Is the Latinized form of the Greek word ἤλεκτρον ( ḗlektron ), mentioned in the Odyssey , referring to a metallic substance consisting of gold alloyed with silver . The same word was also used for the substance amber , likely because of the pale yellow color of certain varieties. (It is from amber’s electrostatic properties that the modern English words electron and electricity are derived.) Electrum
2697-572: 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
2790-590: 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
2883-413: 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
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2976-524: 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
3069-445: 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
3162-573: The Green Line . The Wadi Qana area of the West Bank portion of the drainage basin encompasses approximately 229 square kilometres (88 sq mi). Harsh rocky limestone and karst terrain is characteristic of the terrain north of its border towards Kafr Thulth . As of 2018, the population of the area of the wadi in the West Bank has been estimated at 176,580 Palestinians in 56 communities and 58,195 Israelis in 15 settlements . In 1922,
3255-523: The Levant . A further significant feature from the find was that the person buried with such objects, the latter suggestive of status symbols , probably had high rank, which would mean that social development in the area in that period was more advanced than hitherto thought. According to the biblical narrative of the allotment of territories, following Joshua's conquest of Canaan , Wadi Qana ( naḥal qānāh , 'the brook Kanah ' of Joshua 16:8, 17:9 served as
3348-610: The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus , are currently dated to the last quarter of the 7th century BC (625–600 BC). Electrum is believed to have been used in coins c. 600 BC in Lydia during the reign of Alyattes . Electrum was much better for coinage than gold, mostly because it was harder and more durable, but also because techniques for refining gold were not widespread at the time. The gold content of naturally occurring electrum in modern western Anatolia ranges from 70% to 90%, in contrast to
3441-568: 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
3534-494: 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
3627-419: 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
3720-709: 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. Electrum Electrum
3813-454: 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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3906-475: The 3 year limit. On 23 January 2014, rangers with bulldozers under military escort ripped out between 500 and 800 olive trees which were then transported to an unknown location. Tear canisters were fired at the Palestinians protesting the measure. In August of that year, settlers constructed a new road, using bulldozers, through the wadi, without any permit. The master plan envisages a ring road connecting all
3999-512: The 45–55% of gold in electrum used in ancient Lydian coinage of the same geographical area. This suggests that the Lydians had already solved the refining technology for silver and were adding refined silver to the local native electrum some decades before introducing pure silver coins. In Lydia, electrum was minted into coins weighing 4.7 grams (0.17 oz), each valued at 1 ⁄ 3 stater (meaning "standard"). Three of these coins—with
4092-571: 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
4185-834: 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
4278-663: The Early Bronze Age in its entirety, including what some call the Intermediate Bronze Age (see List of archaeological periods ). By the fourth millennium, human use of the wadi is attested by prehistorical artifacts found in a karstic cave 25 km east of the Mediterranean on the western fringe of the Samaria hills. The existence of the cave came to the attention of speleologists from
4371-683: The Earth International , from 1979 to 1982 the area was declared a closed military zone. On 3 May 1983 it was declared a nature reserve in accordance with the IMO. The nature reserve was established on the agricultural lands of the Palestinian village of Deir Istiya. The area around the West Bank area of Wadi Qana is a nature reserve operated by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) A hundred Jewish homes have been built inside
4464-543: The French biblical scholar and geographer Félix-Marie Abel identified stone structures in Wadi Qana, some consisting of piles seven courses high, as megaliths forming a dolmen necropolis ( nécropole dolménique ). Dolmens in the region, if the wider definition of the term is accepted, cover the period between the mid-4th millennium to the late-4th millennium BCE i.e. the end of the Late Chalcolithic, and
4557-805: The Israel Cave Research Center (ICRC) of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel when some villagers from Kafr Laqif told them of a deep cave in the wadi, which they then located, 250 metres up from the wadi floor, after a two-day search the following year. It contained a cemetery. Placing mortuary sites at a distance from settlements is a characteristic innovation of the Levantine Chalcolithic period, and this one could be accessed only by crawling through
4650-540: The Israeli dispensation, be used for Palestinian commercial or industrial projects: The one remaining option of using it for agricultural purposes – planting olive trees, for example, is, however, hampered by severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on the grounds that such activities damage the wadi's natural flora, the topography, and the character of the habitat.' On 23 May 2021, around 15 settlers, escorted by some 5 Israeli soldiers, herded about 60 cattle into
4743-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
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#17327657150374836-690: 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
4929-576: 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
5022-445: The Wadi Qana stream, contaminating its use for Palestinian irrigation, until the recognized settlements were connected to the sewage system in 2006. The illegal Israeli outposts of Alonei Shilo and El Matan however continue to pollute the stream by discharging their wastewater directly into it. Palestinian villages nearby add to this pollution by using cesspits whose contents are then randomly discharged into open areas and valleys near
5115-484: The Wadi Qana valley down to 1967. In that year the area came under Israeli occupation in the wake of the Six-Day War . In the succeeding 33 years, the number of farmers shrunk to 14. In the 1970s Israel began deep drilling in the wadi area with its rich groundwater resources and one consequence was that many springs and wells used by local Palestinians dried up. In 1978 it began to establish Israeli settlements on
5208-545: The area to graze them there. When Wadi Qana's farmers who own fields and groves there protested, they were pepper-sprayed and clubbed by settlers and one was rifle-butted by a soldier. Those not injured were prevented from leaving the valley until late at night. On returning to their homes, they found 4 of their cars damaged. The Israeli military order (IMO) regarding Nature Protection (Judea and Samaria) (No. 363), 5730 – 1969, governs use of areas designated as nature reserves, based on similar Israeli laws. According to Friends of
5301-594: The boundary running between the northern Manasseh and the southern Ephraim . The description of the border is somewhat complicated, since they overlap with the former Amorite Tappuah being Ephraimite but in Manasseh territory. A tradition among the population of the Wadi Qana ecosystem in the area to the north of the gully itself – an area which has a scant 139 hectares of arable land – holds that their ancestors once occupied Zakur (itself now abandoned). It has been suggested that this dispersion may have had its roots in
5394-574: 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
5487-638: The early classical period the gold content of electrum ranged from 46% in Phokaia to 43% in Mytilene . In later coinage from these areas, dating to 326 BC, the gold content averaged 40% to 41%. In the Hellenistic period electrum coins with a regularly decreasing proportion of gold were issued by the Carthaginians . In the later Eastern Roman Empire controlled from Constantinople the purity of
5580-587: 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
5673-728: 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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#17327657150375766-607: 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
5859-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
5952-661: The goal of the reserves is "to dispossess Palestinians". In 2011 the Israeli National Parks Authority uprooted 1,000 olive trees planted by Wadi Palestinians and issued a directive for the grubbing up of a further 1,400. The reason given was ecological. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Israel handed down a judgement that the directive could apply only to saplings younger than 3 years. The following year Israeli park wardens nonetheless marked for destruction 2,100 olive trees, many of them older than
6045-400: The gold coinage was reduced Electrum is mentioned in an account of an expedition sent by Pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt . It is also discussed by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia . It is also mentioned in the Bible, in the first chapter of the book of the prophet Ezekiel . The earliest known electrum coins, Lydian coins and East Greek coins found under
6138-465: The high banks on either side of the wadi. According to B'Tselem , Karnei Shomron was set up in that year on lands confiscated from four Palestinian villages: Jinsafut, Deir Istiya, Kafr Laqif and Hajjah , while Immanuel was established in 1983 taking 951 dunams from Deir Istiya, and, in establishing Sha'ar Emmanuel (1981) 159 dunams were confiscated from Immatain . To the south, both Yaqir (1981) and Nofim were established on territory
6231-420: 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
6324-437: The land. Friends of the Earth International reported that Palestinian agricultural projects have been destroyed by the Israeli authorities "under the guise of nature protection", calling the creation of such nature reserves "a significant tool of ethnic cleansing for the Israeli occupying forces." Outposts are often built or build inside nature reserves and in the past the INPA has done little about it even working hand in hand with
6417-558: 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
6510-550: 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)
6603-420: 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
6696-883: 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
6789-782: 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
6882-424: 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
6975-619: The outposts and settlements, while blocking the one existing access road Palestinians may use. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , Israel has destroyed Palestinian irrigation channels in the Wadi Qana area "under the pretext of environmental protection". B'Tselem reported that while the wadi area was actively being developed into a tourist site, Israeli authorities were issuing orders prohibiting any Palestinian development of
7068-549: 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
7161-519: The park. Alonei Shilo was built as an Israeli outpost within the reserve and then subsequently gained Israeli authorization by reclassifying it as part of the Karnei Shomron settlement. Land from the reserve was also allocated to the El Matan outpost. Amira Hass cites the Wadi Qana reserve as an example of Israeli efforts to "narrow the Palestinian expanse" by creating nature reserves and that
7254-410: 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
7347-458: 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
7440-768: The settlers. In a recent departure from this practice, the INPA, in 2018, initiated proceedings against 3 settlers from Alonei Shiloh for constructing a road partly passing through the reserve. The site is the only known location of Pelobates syriacus in the West Bank. Research into the area's unique environment was undertaken by the Palestine Museum of Natural History . Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
7533-458: 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
7626-563: 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
7719-501: 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
7812-700: The village lands of Deir Istiya, Jinsafur and Kafr Laqif were declared. The West Bank part of Wadi Qana, surrounded by Palestinian villages such as Deir Istiya , Qarawat Bani Hassan , Biddya , Sanniriya , Kafr Thulth, Azzun , Kafr Laqif and Jinsafut , runs through a fertile valley and constituted one of the most notable natural attractions in terms of the beauty of its landscape, given its abundance of springs, extent of its well-watered land, and plentiful trees. The area has traditionally furnished local Palestinians with important land for grazing livestock, harvesting agricultural products, especially citrus, and for leisure (bathing). Many families also used it to dwell along
7905-677: The village of Burin in the West Bank . Lined by steep cliffs on either side, the wadi waters flow in a general ENE-WSW direction and reach the Sharon plain near Jaljulia , Israel, where it empties into the Yarkon just west of the Yarkon interchange . West of the central anticline , its surface and sub- aquifers form one of the recharging feeders of the Yarqon Tanninim basin, 1,400 square kilometres (540 sq mi) of which lie east of
7998-509: The wadi to shift out, moving to Deir Istiya. The plan of Israel's "Separation Barrier" cuts out Deir Istiya from the wadi, leaving it on the 'Israeli' side of that sector of the West Bank. When the Kana Stream Restoration Authority (2006) was inaugurated, one of its purposes, according to leaders of the settlement councils, was to block what they regarded as attempts by 'Palestinian elements' to assume control of
8091-507: The wadi's reaches. Its water was drawn in order to irrigate vegetable plots. It afforded rich grazing for flocks, carrying an estimated 50,000 sheep down to the early 1980s, compared to the 3,000 Palestinians still manage to tend in the wadi in recent years (2017). The wadi runs between the Palestinian administrative zones of the Salfit and Qalqilya Governorates . It is estimated that approximately 200 local farmers worked in their fields inside
8184-473: The wadi's springs. In 1995 it was estimated that Yaqir, Karnei Shomron, and Immanuel alone annually generated approximately 908,700 cubic meters of wastewater directly into the Wadi. This combination of polluting discharges from settlements, and the reduced water flow caused by Israeli drilling undermined the traditional exploitation of its waters for irrigating vegetable crops, and forced some 50 families resident in
8277-630: The wadi's stream. Since 2005 an annual spring walk takes place under the auspices of the Karnei Shomron Council. During the walk, local Palestinians, including landowners, are not permitted to access the wadi. Further projects, with large investments from the Israeli government and the Jewish National Fund, aim at developing it as a major Israeli tourist site. That part of the wadi's village lands lying in Area C may not, under
8370-451: 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
8463-622: Was appropriated from Deir Istiya. After the Oslo Accords (1993 and 1995) and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PA), the central sector of the wadi, east of Qalqiliya , became part of Area C , and was mostly owned by the villagers of Deir Istiya. Later, further illegal outposts such as Alonei Shilo (1999), Yair Farm (1999) and El Matan (2000) were set up in the wadi zone. All of these settlements discharged their sewage waste waters into
8556-406: Was often referred to as "white gold" in ancient times but could be more accurately described as pale gold because it is usually pale yellow or yellowish-white in color. The modern use of the term white gold usually concerns gold alloyed with any one or a combination of nickel , silver, platinum and palladium to produce a silver-colored gold. Electrum consists primarily of gold and silver but
8649-457: Was used as early as the third millennium BC in the Old Kingdom of Egypt , sometimes as an exterior coating to the pyramidions atop ancient Egyptian pyramids and obelisks . It was also used in the making of ancient drinking vessels . The first known metal coins made were of electrum, dating back to the end of the 7th century or the beginning of the 6th century BC. The name electrum
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