114-643: The Taif Agreement ( Arabic : اتفاق الطائف , French : Accord de Taëf ), officially known as the National Reconciliation Accord ( وثيقة الوفاق الوطني ) , was reached to provide "the basis for the ending of the civil war and the return to political normalcy in Lebanon ". Negotiated in Taif , Saudi Arabia , it was designed to end the 15 year-long Lebanese Civil War , and reassert Lebanese government authority in southern Lebanon , which
228-664: A "resistance force" rather than a militia, fighting Israel in the south, a privilege obtained – according to the Swedish academic Magnus Ranstorp – in part by using its leverage as holder of a number of Western hostages. Although the Taif Agreement identified the abolition of political sectarianism as a national priority, it provided no timeframe for doing so. The Chamber of Deputies was increased in size to 128 members, shared equally between Christians and Muslims, rather than elected by universal suffrage that would have provided
342-567: A Muslim majority (excluding the expatriate community, a majority of which is Christian). A cabinet was established similarly divided equally between Christians and Muslims. According to As'ad AbuKhalil , the agreement greatly diminished the power of the President to the benefit of the Council of Ministers , although there is ongoing debate about whether this power has shifted to the Council as
456-575: 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
570-435: 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
684-516: A country with "an Arab identity and belonging." The agreement was finalized and confirmed only after the development of an anti-Saddam Hussein international alliance. The alliance included Saudi Arabia , Egypt , Syria , France , Iran and the United States . The agreement formed the principle of "mutual coexistence" ( العيش المشترك ) between Lebanon's different sects and their "proper political representation" ( التمثيل السياسي الصحيح ) as
798-1081: 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
912-490: A few White voters to a separate set of constituencies, under the principle of weighted voting ; this was replaced in 1969 by an explicitly racial franchise, with delegated all Blacks to the 'B' voters roll). In Sweden (including Swedish-ruled Finland ), women's suffrage was granted during the Age of Liberty from 1718 until 1772. In Corsica , women's suffrage was granted in 1755 and lasted until 1769. Women's suffrage (with
1026-487: 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
1140-529: A major country was granted in New Zealand in 1893. The women's suffrage bill was adopted mere weeks before the general election of 1893. Māori men had been granted suffrage in 1867, white men in 1879. The Freedom in the World index lists New Zealand as the only free country in the world in 1893. South Australia first granted women suffrage and allowed them to stand for parliament in 1894 . In 1906,
1254-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
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#17327661729641368-708: A minimum voting age of 20. The UK gave women the right to vote at the same age as men (21) in 1928. In 1931, the Second Spanish Republic allowed women the right of passive suffrage with three women being elected. During a discussion on extending women's right to active suffrage, the Radical Socialist Victoria Kent confronted the Radical Clara Campoamor . Kent argued that Spanish women were not yet prepared to vote and, since they were too influenced by
1482-461: A minority of the male population. In some jurisdictions, other restrictions existed, such as requiring voters to practice a given religion. In all modern democracies, the number of people who could vote has increased progressively with time. The 19th century saw many movements advocating "universal [male] suffrage", most notably in Europe and North America. Female suffrage was largely ignored until
1596-575: A precedent for broader suffrage rights worldwide. However, voting rights were often limited to those of the dominant ethnicity. In the United States, after the principle of " One person, one vote " was established in the early 1960s by the U.S. Supreme Court under Earl Warren , the U.S. Congress , together with the Warren Court , continued to protect and expand the voting rights of all Americans , especially African Americans, through
1710-645: A prerequisite for allowing men to register and vote. Greece recognized full male suffrage in 1844. Spain recognized it in the Constitution of 1869 and France and Switzerland have continuously done so since the 1848 Revolution (for resident male citizens). Upon independence in the 19th century, several Latin-American countries and Liberia in Africa initially extended suffrage to all adult males, but subsequently restricted it based on property requirements. The German Empire implemented full male suffrage in 1871. In
1824-594: 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
1938-462: 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",
2052-469: A serious political crisis of a split premiership, as the post was reserved for a Sunni Muslim due to the National Pact of 1943, and Omar Karami held this office. The Taif agreement helped to overcome this crisis by preparing the election of a new president. The agreement also provided for the disarmament of all national and non national militias. Hezbollah was allowed to stay armed in its capacity as
2166-470: 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
2280-791: A time frame for their full withdrawal of the country. This loophole enabled the Syrian Arab Army to occupy the Beqaa for the next 15 years and dominate political life for the same period, until its complete retreat in March 2005 following the Cedar Revolution and UN Resolution 1559. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
2394-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
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#17327661729642508-507: 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
2622-615: A whole or the Prime Minister. The president, having had significant executive power prior to the agreement, was reduced to a figurehead with no real and/or considerable power, as in most parliamentary republics . He also noted that the agreement extended the term of the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament from one year to four years, although the position "remains largely without meaningful authority". The agreement
2736-476: 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
2850-737: 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
2964-590: 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
3078-559: 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
3192-478: 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
3306-408: 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
3420-472: 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
3534-574: 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
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3648-855: 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
3762-572: 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
3876-590: 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
3990-413: 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
4104-524: 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
4218-445: 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
4332-502: The Catholic Church , they would vote for right-wing candidates. Campoamor however pleaded for women's rights regardless of political orientation. Her point finally prevailed and, in the election of 1933, the political right won with the vote of citizens of any sex over 23. Both Campoamor and Kent lost their seats. In Switzerland, women's suffrage was introduced at the federal level, by a nationwide (male) referendum in 1971, but
4446-632: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 , Voting Rights Act of 1965 and several Supreme Court rulings. In addition, the term " suffrage " is also associated specifically with women's suffrage in the United States ; a movement to extend the franchise to women began in the mid-19th century and culminated in 1920, when the United States ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , guaranteeing
4560-823: The Landsgemeinde , which managed political and judicial affairs. Before the national referendum in 1971, women had gained the right to vote in Cantonal elections and referendums in Vaud, & Neuchâtel in 1959; Genêve in 1960; Basel-Stadt in 1966; Basel-Land in 1968; Ticino in 1969; and Valais, Luzern, & Zürich in 1970. They were granted the right to vote in 1971 in Aargau, Fribourg, Schaffhausen, Zug, Glarus, Solothurn, Bern, & Thurgau. St. Gallen, Uri, Schwyz, Grischun, Nidwalden, & Obwalden soon followed in 1972. Appenzell Ausserrhoden only allowed women to vote in 1989, and
4674-627: The South prior to the end (1865) of the American Civil War and the 1864–1865 abolition of slavery . Despite the amendment, however, blacks were disfranchised in the former Confederate states after 1877 ; Southern officials ignored the amendment and blocked black citizens from voting through a variety of devices, including poll taxes , literacy tests , and grandfather clauses ; violence and terrorism were used to intimidate some would-be voters. Southern blacks did not effectively receive
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4788-483: The Tricameral Parliament established separate chambers for Whites, Coloureds and Indians. Rhodesia enacted a similar statute to the former in its proclaimed independence of 1965, which however allowed a smaller number of representatives for the considerably larger Black majority (under its 1961 constitution, the voting classes had been based on socio-economic standards, which marginalized most Black and
4902-568: 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
5016-494: 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
5130-471: The right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote " principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion of the young and non-citizens (among others). At the same time, some insist that more inclusion is needed before suffrage can be truly universal. Democratic theorists, especially those hoping to achieve more universal suffrage, support presumptive inclusion , where
5244-419: 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
5358-766: 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. Universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures
5472-454: 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
5586-571: 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
5700-834: 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
5814-620: The Beqaa). From 7 February 1991, the Lebanese army began deploying in villages next to the Israeli ‘security zone’ . On 15 February Fatah fighters crushed a revolt by a group of their own members who refused to leave their positions in one of the villages. 10 people were killed in the fighting. On 4 July 1991, following the failure of disarmament negotiations, as required by the Taif agreement,
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#17327661729645928-471: The Commonwealth of Australia became the first country to grant full suffrage for women, i.e. the rights both to vote and to run for office. However, Australia did not implement universal suffrage at this time – nationwide voting rights for Aboriginal Australians were not established until 1962, before that varying by state. Many societies in the past have denied or abridged political representation on
6042-683: The Danish crown in 1918. Recovered and extended to all men from 1869 to 1878 (comprising the Provisional Government , the Reign of Amadeo of Savoy , the First Spanish Republic and the three first years of Bourbon Restoration ) and from 1890 to the end of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–36). On 19 November 1933 women were granted the right to vote. Revoked during Franco era (1939–75) and recovered since 1977 in
6156-697: The Jacobin government in 1794 discredited most ideas associated with them, including that constitution). Elsewhere in the Francophone world, the Republic of Haiti legislated for universal male suffrage in 1816. The Second French Republic instituted adult male suffrage after the revolution of 1848 . Following the French revolutions, movements in the Western world toward more universal suffrage occurred in
6270-760: The Keserwan and Jbeil districts in April 1990 to the LAF under General Elie Hayek (Mount Lebanon commander), with the condition that its 10,000 men strong force remain intact. In 1989/90 the Metn and Baabda areas, which had been the heartland of the Phalange Party and the LF since the 1950s, experienced unprecedented fighting and shelling following Michel Aoun’s offensives against Samir Geagea ’s LF. On 13 October 1990, during
6384-419: The Lebanese Army attacked Palestinian positions in Southern Lebanon. The offensive, involving 10,000 troops against an estimated 5,000 militia, lasted 3 days and ended with the Army taking all the Palestinian positions around Sidon . In the agreement that followed all heavy weapons were surrendered and infantry weapons only allowed in the two refugee camps, Ain al-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh . 73 people were killed in
6498-412: 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
6612-474: 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
6726-413: 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
6840-399: The South in 2000 for the first time since 1976 – 34 years after it retreated following the Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon. Despite the IDF withdrawal in 2000, Hezbollah did not disarm - with approval from President Lahoud and Syria - in violation of the Taif Accord. The agreement stipulated the withdrawal of all Syrian troops to the Beqaa valley by 2 years at most, but did not provide
6954-415: The Syrian assault on Baabda Palace, Aoun escaped to the French embassy. The LAF under General Elie Hayek began moving South from Kisrawan and East from Beirut into the Metn and Baabda. Following the battle for the Presidential Palace in which 150 of their soldiers were killed the Syrian army executed up to 80 of the defenders. Atrocities also occurred in the Metn where the SSNP and Hobeika ’s LF were at
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#17327661729647068-495: The Taif agreement the Prime Minister was responsible to the legislature, as in a traditional parliamentary system. Therefore, the agreement changed the power-sharing formula that had favoured the Christians to a 50:50 ratio and enhanced the powers of the Sunni Prime Minister over those of the Christian president. Prior to the Taif negotiations, a Maronite Christian, General Michel Aoun , had been appointed Prime Minister by President Amine Gemayel on 22 September 1988. This had caused
7182-438: The United States, the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , ratified in 1870 during the Reconstruction era , provided that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." This amendment aimed to guarantee the right to vote to African Americans, many of whom had been enslaved in
7296-459: The autonomous Grand Principality of Finland became the first territory to give women full political rights, i.e. both the right to vote and to run for office, and was the second in the world and the first in Europe to give women the right to vote. The world's first female members of parliament were elected in Finland the following year, 1907. After the German Revolution of 1918–19, the Weimar Constitution established universal suffrage in 1919 with
7410-415: The basis of race or ethnicity, related to discriminatory ideas about citizenship . For example, in apartheid -era South Africa, non-White people could generally not vote in national elections until the first multi-party elections in 1994 . However, a nonracial franchise existed under the Cape Qualified Franchise , which was replaced by a number of separate MPs in 1936 (Blacks) and 1958 (Coloureds). Later,
7524-522: The completely destroyed downtown. The LAF had not been present in the Chouf and most parts of Aley since 1975 when fighting first broke out; in addition, the area was devoid of Christians following an ethnic cleansing committed by Jumblatt’s PLA during the 1983 Mountain War. On 30 April 1991, the final date of militia disbandment, the Lebanese Army under the command of Hayek entered the Aley and Chouf districts, taking position at former PLA checkpoints and seizing all artillery material. The Chouf Mountains were
7638-509: 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
7752-428: The early 19th century, and focused on removing property requirements for voting. In 1867 Germany (the North German Confederation ) enacted suffrage for all adult males. In the United States following the American Civil War , slaves were freed and granted rights of citizens , including suffrage for adult males (although several states established restrictions largely, though not completely, diminishing these rights). In
7866-412: 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
7980-434: The establishment of special relations between Lebanon and Syria , and a framework for the beginning of complete Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Since Rafik Hariri was a former Saudi diplomatic representative, he played a significant role in constructing the Taif Agreement. It is also argued that the Taif Accord reoriented Lebanon toward the Arab world , especially Syria. In other words, the Taif Accord positioned Lebanon as
8094-728: 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
8208-607: 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
8322-654: The fighting, and 200 wounded, mostly Palestinian. As the South was occupied by Israel and the South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia, the army was not deployed there until the year 2000, when Israel and the SLA retreated South of the Blue Line. As a result of the occupation in 1989, the Taif Agreement enabled "resistance" groups to remain armed in the South until Israeli withdrawal (principally Hezbollah). The LAF entered
8436-477: The first British-controlled colony in which women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. This was followed shortly after by the colony of South Australia in 1894, which was the second to allow women to vote, but the first colony to permit women to stand for election as well. In 1906, the autonomous Russian territory known as Grand Duchy of Finland (which became the Republic of Finland in 1917) became
8550-550: The first territory in the world to implement unrestricted universal suffrage, as women could stand as candidates, unlike in New Zealand, and without indigenous ethnic exclusion, like in Australia. It also lead to the election of the world's first female members of parliament the following year . Federal states and colonial or autonomous territories prior to World War I have multiple examples of early introduction of universal suffrage. However, these legal changes were effected with
8664-645: The forefront of the Syrian operations. Following the end of the Elimination War on 13 October 1990, LAF soldiers began dismantling militia positions on the Green Line . Soon after, barrages and checkpoints blocking access between the cantons were dismantled, allowing traffic to move freely between the East and West for the first time since 1976. In addition, the LAF moved into Martyrs’ Square, which had been
8778-510: 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
8892-597: 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
9006-613: 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
9120-548: The last areas of Mount Lebanon that the LAF moved into. Slowly after, Christians began returning to their homeland in these territories, but it was not until the Mountain Reconciliation in 2001 that the mass return of Christians was finalized. Up until the 30 April 1991, all LF apparatus and positions were integrated into the national army. The army entered the districts of Bcharre (LF/Maronite heartland) to take command of any remaining positions, although there
9234-492: The last uninterrupted time from the present a group was granted the right to vote if that group's suffrage has been fully restored. In 1894, the parliament of the Colony of South Australia enacted legislation providing female adults franchise; giving all adults of the age of majority the right to vote in elections, and for any elector to stand for high office. In 1901, the self-governing colonies of Australia federated . In 1902,
9348-604: 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)
9462-486: The late-19th and early-20th centuries, the focus of the universal suffrage movement came to include the extension of the right to vote to women , as happened from the post-Civil War era in several Western states and during the 1890s in a number of British colonies. On 19 September 1893 the British Governor of New Zealand, Lord Glasgow , gave assent to a new electoral act, which meant that New Zealand became
9576-422: The latter half of the century, when movements began to thrive; the first of these was in New Zealand, in which all adult women of all ethnicities gained the right to vote in 1893. A year later, South Australia granted all citizens the right to vote and stand for election, making it the first place in the world where women could stand as candidates for election to parliament. From there, this groundbreaking reform set
9690-420: 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
9804-421: The legal system would protect the voting rights of all subjects unless the government can clearly prove that disenfranchisement is necessary. Universal full suffrage includes both the right to vote, also called active suffrage, and the right to be elected, also called passive suffrage . In the first modern democracies, governments restricted the vote to those with property and wealth, which almost always meant
9918-758: The main objective of post-civil war parliamentary electoral laws. It also restructured the National Pact political system in Lebanon by transferring some of the power away from the Maronite Christian community, which had been given a privileged status in Lebanon under the period of French rule. Prior to the agreement, the Sunni Muslim Prime Minister was appointed by and responsible to the Maronite President. After
10032-883: 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
10146-669: The movement to extend voting rights to children and youth. While some jurisdictions extend the right to vote in at least some elections to resident non-citizens and non-resident citizens, many people remain unable to vote based on their citizenship and residency status. Non-citizen suffrage with non-resident citizen voting can result in dual transnational voting. States have granted and revoked universal suffrage at various times. Note: this chart does not indicate periods of autocratic rule (when voting has little or no power). Since historically one group or another might have lost suffrage rights only to regain them later on, this table lists
10260-782: 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
10374-800: The new Spanish Constitution. Women's suffrage was introduced at the national level after a nationwide (male) referendum in 1971, but the referendum did not give women the right to vote at the Cantonal level. On the level of the constituent states of the Old Swiss Confederacy , universal male suffrage is first attested in Uri in 1231, in Schwyz in 1294, in Unterwalden in 1309, and in Appenzell in 1403. In these rural communities all men fit for military service were allowed to participate in
10488-511: The new federal parliament legislated for an adult franchise and the right of electors to stand for and occupy any office for which they could directly vote. This franchise, including voting rights for non-Indigenous women, was established by the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 . Voting rights for Indigenous Australians varied depending on state legislation. The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962 granted Indigenous Australians
10602-424: 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
10716-549: 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
10830-476: The permission of the British, Russian or other government bodies, which were considered the sovereign nation at the time. For this reason, Australia (1901), New Zealand (1908) and Finland (1917) all have different dates of achieving independent nationhood. The First French Republic adopted universal male suffrage briefly in 1792; it was one of the first national systems that abolished all property requirements as
10944-457: The referendum did not give women the right to vote at the local Cantonal level. The Cantons independently voted to grant women the right to vote. The first Canton to give women the right to vote was Vaud in 1959. The last Canton, Appenzell Innerrhoden , had a centuries-old law forbidding women to vote. This was only changed in 1990 when Switzerland's Federal Court ordered the Canton to grant women
11058-410: 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
11172-454: The right of women to vote. It would be 1928 before voting rights were guaranteed to all women in the UK . France, under the 1793 Jacobin constitution , was the first major country to enact suffrage for all adult males, though it was never formally used in practice (the constitution was immediately suspended before being implemented, and the subsequent election occurred in 1795 after the fall of
11286-528: The right to vote in federal elections. In 1965, the Queensland parliament extended voting rights to all Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. Compulsory enrolment was extended to Indigenous Australians nationwide in 1984. Somewhat reverted in 1925: women's voting age raised to 30, education and wealth requirements were raised. In rural constituencies open voting was reinstated. The rate of eligible citizens fell to 29%. A small share of women were granted
11400-521: The right to vote in local elections in 1882. Women's suffrage was proposed in the Althing in 1911, ratified by the Althing in 1913, and enacted on 19 June 1915 by the Danish king but only granted the vote to women over 40, and did not grant the right to vote to servants. These restrictions (along with some restrictions on male suffrage) were lifted in 1920 after Iceland became an independent state under
11514-488: The right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . In 1893 the self-governing colony New Zealand became the first country in the world (except for the short-lived 18th-century Corsican Republic ) to grant active universal suffrage by giving women the right to vote. It did not grant universal full suffrage (the right to both vote and be a candidate, or both active and passive suffrage) until 1919. In 1902,
11628-564: The right to vote. The movement to lower the voting age many consider an aspect of universal suffrage that the youth rights movement has helped to lead. Organizations such as the National Youth Rights Association are active in the United States to advocate for a lower voting age, with some success, among other issues related to youth rights. A related movement, suffrage for Americans with disabilities provides important precedents and intersectionality with
11742-509: The same property qualifications as for men) was granted in New Jersey in 1776 (the word "inhabitants" was used instead of "men" in the 1776 Constitution) and rescinded in 1807. The Pitcairn Islands granted restricted women's suffrage in 1838. Various other countries and states granted restricted women's suffrage in the later half of the nineteenth century, starting with South Australia in 1861. The first unrestricted women's suffrage in
11856-458: 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
11970-409: The site of some of the most intense fighting in the entire Civil War. On 3 December 1990 Samir Geagea ’s LF officially withdrew from East Beirut with a 2,000 man parade featuring hundreds of vehicles, including tanks and artillery. They also stripped Beirut port of all its equipment including cranes and tugboats. A few years later, the company Solidere would be mandated by the government to rebuild
12084-458: 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
12198-563: 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
12312-501: 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
12426-451: 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
12540-565: Was controlled at the time by the Christian -separatist South Lebanon Army under the occupational hegemony of Israel . Though the agreement set a time frame for withdrawal of Syrian military forces from Lebanon, stipulating that the Syrian occupation end within two years, Syria did not withdraw its forces from the country until 2005. It was signed on 22 October 1989 and ratified by the Lebanese parliament on 5 November, 1989. The treaty
12654-665: Was fathered by the Speaker of the Parliament Hussein El-Husseini and negotiated in Ta'if , Saudi Arabia , by the surviving members of Lebanon's 1972 parliament. The agreement came into effect with the active mediation of Saudi Arabia, discreet participation by the United States, and behind-the-scenes influence from Syria. The agreement covered political reform, the ending of the Lebanese Civil War ,
12768-516: Was no animosity or historic entrance as two presidents during the war (Bachir and Amine Gemayel) had been Phalangists, therefore army/LF cooperation had been an everyday affair. Most Syrian troops withdrew from Akkar and Tripoli in the two years following Hrawi's signature of the Accord to Tartous governorate in Syria or the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon (as there was no time limit on their presence in
12882-752: Was ratified on 5 November 1989. The Parliament met on the same day at the Qoleiat air base in North Lebanon and elected President René Moawad , 409 days after Amine Gemayel vacated this position upon the expiration of his term in 1988. Moawad was unable to occupy the Presidential Palace which was still in use by General Michel Aoun. Moawad was assassinated seventeen days later in a car bombing in Beirut on 22 November 1989 as his motorcade returned from Lebanese Independence Day ceremonies. He
12996-480: Was succeeded by Elias Hrawi , who remained in office until 1998. The agreement contained multiple constitutional amendments, which came into force following President Hrawi's signature in September 1990. Among the most major changes: Hrawi’s government set 30 April 1991 as the final date imposing the surrender of all territory, heavy artillery, and disbandment of militias. The LF had already agreed to hand over
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