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82-473: The name derives from Ancient Greek : Αντιαράδος , romanized :  Anti-Arados (Antarados or Anti-Aradus , meaning "The town facing Arwad"). In Latin , its name became Tortosa . The original name survives in its Arabic form as Ṭarṭūs ( Arabic : طَرْطُوس ), from which the French Tartous and English Tartus derive. The History of Tartus goes back to the 2nd millennium BCE when it

164-577: A Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered

246-493: A Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance base, under a 1971 agreement with Syria, which is still staffed by Russian naval personnel. Tartus is the last Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union, and its only Mediterranean fueling spot, sparing Russia's warships the trip back to their Black Sea bases through straits in Turkey , a NATO member . Many cultural and literary events, art festivals and theater are held in

328-665: A barracks by the Ottomans . It was renovated under the French Mandate and since 1956, the building has housed the National Museum of Tartus, which exhibits antiquities recovered from Amrit and many other places in the region. In September 2021, the Directorate-General of Antiquities began a comprehensive renovation and fixing operations of architectural elements that were subjected to fragmentation at

410-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

492-547: A beautiful modern city with its buildings, markets, modern resorts, tourist facilities and port. As for the beaches of Tartous, it is a beautiful extension of the Syrian coast, with a length of about 90 km, with soft sand, chalets, hotels, cafes and marine restaurants that are scattered on it. The city has seen some investment in the last few years, the largest being the Antaradus and Porto waterfront developments. Tartus hosts

574-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

656-530: A garrison on the nearby island of Arwad , which they held for another decade. After the occupation by the Mamluks , the city lost its prestige, which it regained only under the Ottoman rule. During the Ottoman rule , the city gained importance mainly due to trade with Cyprus and Europe. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, it became one of the coastal defense points due to its strategic port. In 1832, at

738-703: A landing force of marines, attacked the citadel in Tartus. Despite heavy losses among the marines, the British were unable to capture the fort. After the war, the city returned to the Ottoman Empire, where it remained until 1918. On May 23, 2016, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings at a bus station in Tartus, which had remained largely unaffected since

820-590: A lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and

902-400: A limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in the nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by

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984-565: A military headquarters. They engaged in some major building projects, constructing a castle around 1165 with a large chapel and an elaborate keep, surrounded by thick double concentric walls. The Templars' mission was to protect the city and surrounding lands, some of which had been occupied by Christian settlers, from Muslim attack. Nur ad-Din Zangi captured Tartus from the Crusaders for a brief time before he lost it again. The city of Tortosa

1066-459: A mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and a fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes ,

1148-422: A peace between the king of León and García Ramírez of Navarre , which became the basis for subsequent negotiations. In 1144, Alfonso again incurred the displeasure of the church by siding with the citizens of Montpellier against their lord . In 1145, Bernard of Clairvaux addressed a letter to him full of concern about a heretic named Henry in the diocese of Toulouse. Bernard even went there to preach against

1230-460: A state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that

1312-415: Is a cement plant in the city with a production capacity of 6.5 thousand tons of cement per day. The pharmaceutical industry is also represented in the city, since the beginning of the conflict in the country, seven pharmaceutical factories have been opened and another 3 are under construction. Food, chemical and wood processing industries are also represented in the urban industrial zone. The service sector

1394-587: Is mentioned as bishop of Antaradus in a letter from the bishops of the province regarding Severus of Antioch that was read at a synod held by Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople . The acts of the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 were signed by Asyncretius as bishop of Aradus. At the time of the Crusades, Antaradus, by then called Tartus or Tortosa, was a Latin Church diocese, whose bishop also held

1476-532: Is notable for having a Greek-speaking population of about 3,000 who are the descendants of Ottoman Greek Muslims from the island of Crete but usually confusingly referred to as Cretan Turks . Their ancestors moved there in the late 19th century as refugees from Crete after the Kingdom of Greece acquired the island from the Ottoman Empire following the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 . Since the start of

1558-499: Is one of the most attractive sectors for employment in the city of Tartus. As a high percentage of its inhabitants with good scientific qualifications work in the service sector, and they are distributed between the public and private sectors, although the participation of the private sector is still below the required level compared to other coastal cities in the Mediterranean . Tartus is a favorite destination for tourists and

1640-918: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Alfonso Jordan Alfonso Jordan , also spelled Alfons Jordan or Alphonse Jourdain (1103–1148),

1722-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

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1804-632: Is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near the Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in

1886-562: The British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of the membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in

1968-657: The European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek

2050-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

2132-679: The Syrian Civil War began in 2011 and continues to remain that way, as a stronghold of the Government of Syria . Purportedly targeting Alawite gatherings, the bombs killed 48 people. In Jableh , similarly insulated, another four bombers killed over a hundred people. The city lies on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea bordered by the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range to the east. Arwad ,

2214-780: The United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout the Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to

2296-468: The genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in the ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in

2378-417: The syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow the noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However,

2460-468: The viscounty of Narbonne in 1134, and ruled it during the minority of Viscountess Ermengarde , only restoring it to her in 1143. In 1141 King Louis VII of France pressed the claim of his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine , granddaughter of Philippa, even besieging Toulouse, but without result. That same year Alfonso Jordan was again in Spain, making a pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela , when he proposed

2542-566: The 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

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2624-562: The Arab world. Many poets and writers lived in Tartous, including Saadallah Wannous , Muhammad Omran, Rasha Omran and Nadim Muhammad, and there are writers who hold their literary seminars and lectures in the city cultural center. St. Mary's Cathedral was originally built in the 12th century as a Templar church. The cathedral was used as a mosque after the Muslim capture of the city, then as

2706-544: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

2788-549: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

2870-593: The Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek

2952-533: The Iraqi War, a few thousand Iraqi nationals now reside in Tartus. Tartus is twinned with: 34°53′N 35°53′E  /  34.883°N 35.883°E  / 34.883; 35.883 Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within

3034-478: The National Museum of Tartus. Tartus is the home city of only one sports club: Al-Sahel SC , founded in 1971. 4 types of sports are being practiced by the club including: football, basketball, table tennis and bodybuilding. The club plays in both stadiums in the city: Municipal (capacity 1,300) and Bassel Al-Assad (capacity 8,000). In 2018, Al-Sahel was promoted to the Syrian Premier League for

3116-646: The Orthodox bishop of Antaradus and also of Aradus (whose names indicate that they were neighbouring towns facing each other) was driven out by the Arians . At the First Council of Constantinople in 381, Mocimus appears as bishop of Aradus. At the time of the Council of Ephesus (431), some sources speak of a Musaeus as bishop of Aradus and Antaradus, while others mention only Aradus or only Antaradus. Alexander

3198-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

3280-479: The arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During the older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from

3362-601: The beginning of the First Egyptian-Ottoman War , the city and its surroundings were conquered by Muhammad Ali Pasha , then ruler of Egypt. In 1839, the Ottoman Empire decided to reconquer its Syrian coastal territories from Egypt with the support of Great Britain. In 1840, during the Syrian War , British frigates HMS Carysfort , HMS Benbow and HMS  Zebra , with the help of

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3444-456: The city of León from opposition magnates and handed it over to Alfonso VII. Among those who may have accompanied Alfonso on one of his many extended stays in Spain was the troubadour Marcabru . By 1132, Alfonso was embroiled in a succession war over the county of Melgueil against Count Berengar Raymond of Provence . This brief conflict was resolved with Alfonso's defeat and Berengar marrying Beatrice , heiress of Melgueil. Alfonso seized

3526-521: The city, and in the summer, the activities of the Tartous Art Festival are held in the presence of distinguished Syrian and Arab artists, in addition to a tourist festival called Antaradus. Assi Rahbani and Mansour Rahbani visited Tartous very often because of their admiration for the place in which they stayed and the good memories they carried from the house in which they stayed in a waterfront, they immortalized that visit by composing

3608-475: The city, while also tasking fiefs to the garrison commanders. Tartus hosted Khadijah , the wife of Muhammad when she came with her father Khuwaylid ibn Asad . The Crusaders called the city Antartus, and also Tortosa. It was captured in 1099 during the First Crusade , Frankish forces captured Tortosa in 1099. Once the land was seized, the cathedral was built over the spot of a Byzantine church. but it

3690-729: The country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine ,

3772-523: The county and conquered it. Alfonso recovered a part in 1119, but he was not in full control until 1123. When at last successful, he was excommunicated by Pope Callixtus II for having damaged the abbey of Saint-Gilles and assaulting the monks. Alfonso next had to fight for his rights in Provence against Count Raymond Berengar III of Barcelona . Not until September 1125 did their war end in "peace and concord" ( pax et concordia ). At this stage, Alfonso

3854-441: The dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before

3936-528: The earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of the Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of

4018-606: The east of the city create a cooler climate with even higher rainfall. Tartus is known for its relatively mild weather and high precipitation compared to inland Syria. Tartus is an important trade center in Syria and has one of the two main ports of the country on the Mediterranean . The city port is experiencing major expansion as a lot of Iraqi imports come through the port of Tartus to aid reconstruction efforts in Iraq . There

4100-412: The extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English

4182-572: The first time in their history. In the 2020-21 season , they were relegated and have been playing in the Syrian League 1st Division ever since. The women's basketball team competes at the top level of the Syrian basketball league. A number of colleges affiliated with Tishreen University in Latakia, such as the College of Arts and the College of Technical Engineering, were opened as part of

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4264-474: The government's policy to expand higher education among the various Syrian cities. The city also has a number of institutes, secondary schools and primary schools affiliated with the Ministry of Education , in addition to many private educational institutes and secondary schools. Tartous has expanded and developed a lot like other cities Syria. The city has recently witnessed a great urban development, which

4346-680: The heresy, an early expression of Catharism . A second time he was excommunicated; but in 1146 he took the cross (i.e., vowed to go on crusade) at a meeting in Vézelay called by Louis VII. In August 1147, he embarked for the near east on the Second Crusade . He lingered on the way in Italy and probably in Constantinople , where he may have met Emperor Manuel I . Alfonso finally arrived at Acre in 1148. He died at Caesarea , which

4428-449: The language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to the modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows

4510-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

4592-452: The many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is

4674-556: The modern city on its northern and eastern sides. Outside the fortress few historic remains can be seen, with the exception of the former Romanesque - Gothic cathedral Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Tartus , from the 12th century. Tartus and the surrounding area are rich in antiquities and archeological sites. Various important and well known sites are located within a 30-minute drive from Tartus. These attractions include: Aside from these historic sites, more modern attractions include: The outlying town of Al Hamidiyah just south of Tartus

4756-465: The morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks the infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of

4838-492: The only inhabited island on the Syrian coast, is located a few kilometers off the shore of Tartus. Tartus occupies most of the coastal plain, surrounded to the east by mountains composed mainly of limestone and, in certain places around the town of Souda , basalt . Tartus has a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen ( Csa ) with mild, wet winters, hot and humid summers, and short transition periods in April and October. The hills to

4920-484: The rail link with Iraq ( IRR ) and the proposal to extend the railway from Al-Qaim in Iraq through Al-Bukamal in Syria to Homs for a total distance of 270 kilometers and thence to Tartus are currently (2022) under discussion. The historic centre of Tartus consists of more recent buildings built on and inside the walls of the Crusader-era Templar fortress, whose moat still separates this old town from

5002-538: The regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of

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5084-460: The song Shabab Al-Hilweh in Tartous sung by Nasri Shamseddine . Among the composers whose name is associated with Tartous and Husayn al-Baher is the musician Safwan Bahlawan Ibn Arwad who has a distinguished performance in the pub and his artistic presence on the Arab art scene. The natives also include the singer Farrah Yousef , finalist of the singing competition Arab Idol and Taim Hasan , an actor known for his dramatic roles in Syria and

5166-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

5248-407: The titles of Aradus and Maraclea (perhaps Rachlea ). It was united to the see of Famagosta in Cyprus in 1295. No longer a residential bishopric, Antaradus is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see . The city was favored by Constantine for its devotion to the cult of the Virgin Mary . The first chapel to be dedicated to the Virgin was built here in the 3rd century. Islamic rule

5330-515: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

5412-442: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

5494-412: Was an attractive destination for tourists from Europe and Arab countries prior to the civil war. Tartus has a developed road system. Tartus and Latakia are connected by the M1 international highway, and the city is connected to Damascus by the M5 highway via Homs . The establishment of an international road linking Tartus with Iraq and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf through the Syrian Desert

5576-447: Was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 as bishop of Antaradus, Paulus as bishop of Aradus, while, at a synod held at Antioch shortly before, Paulus took part as bishop of both Aradus and Antaradus. In 458, Atticus signed, as bishop of Aradus, the letter of the bishops of the province of Phoenicia Prima to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian protesting about the murder of Proterius of Alexandria . Theodorus or Theodosius, who died in 518,

5658-428: Was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and

5740-423: Was established in Syria in 634. In the years before, Arab merchants would spread the word of Islam and locals embraced the new religion while others continued to practice their respective faiths. During the Arab conquest of the Levant , caliphate armies conquered Tartus under the leadership of Ubadah ibn al-Samit in 636. While Ubadah occupied Tartus, Mu'awiya I came to the city, and built an Amsar complex within

5822-415: Was founded as a Phoenician colony of Aradus . The colony was known as Antaradus. Not much remains of the Phoenician Antaradus, the mainland settlement that was linked to the more important and larger settlements of Aradus, off the shore of Tartus, and the nearby site of Amrit . The city was called Antaradus in Latin . Athanasius reports that, under Roman Emperor Constantine the Great , Cymatius,

5904-537: Was later taken over by Muslims, before it was recaptured by Raymond of Saint-Gilles in February 1102 after two weeks of siege, then it was left in 1105 to his son Alfonso Jordan and was known as Tortosa. In 1123 the Crusaders built the semi-fortified Cathedral of Our Lady of Tortosa over a Byzantine church that was popular with pilgrims. In 1152, Tortosa was handed to the Knights Templar , who used it as

5986-461: Was manifested in the significant increase in the number of organized suburbs, not to mention the increase in the city's organizational plan to include new areas. It is worth noting that there are beautiful gardens in the city that constitute a real outlet for the people of the city, such as Al-Basel Park and others. In addition to the new sea corniche, which gives the city a special charm. The city attracts many people from other Syrian governorates, and

6068-664: Was master of the regions lying between the Pyrenees and the Alps , the Auvergne and the sea. His ascendancy was, according to one commentator, an unmixed good to the country, for during a period of fourteen years art and industry flourished. In March 1126, Alfonso was at the court of King Alfonso VII of León when he acceded to the throne. According to the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris , Alfonso and Suero Vermúdez took

6150-566: Was recaptured by Saladin in 1188, and the main Templar headquarters was relocated to Cyprus . However, in Tortosa, some Templars were able to retreat into the keep, which they continued to use as a base for the next 100 years. They steadily added to its fortifications until it also fell, in 1291. Tortosa was the last outpost of the Templars on the Syrian mainland, after which they retreated to

6232-643: Was recently studied, as it is the shortest road connecting the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and thus Europe from the Port of Tartus. The main commercial coastal road of the city is Al-Thawra Street, named after 1963 March Revolution . The railway network operated by Chemins de Fer Syriens connects Tartus with other cities in Syria, although currently only the Latakia -Tartus and Tartus- Al Akkari - Homs passenger connections are in service. The restoration of

6314-485: Was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in

6396-613: Was the Count of Tripoli (1105–09), Count of Rouergue (1109–48) and Count of Toulouse , Margrave of Provence and Duke of Narbonne (1112–48). Alfonso was the son of Raymond IV of Toulouse by his third wife, Elvira of Castile . He was born in the castle of Mont Pèlerin in Tripoli while his father was on the First Crusade . He was given the name "Jourdain" after being baptised in the Jordan River . Alfonso's father died when he

6478-470: Was two years old and he remained under the guardianship of his cousin, William Jordan , Count of Cerdagne , until he was five. He was then taken to Europe, where his half-brother Bertrand had given him the county of Rouergue. Upon Bertrand's death in 1112, Alfonso succeeded to the county of Toulouse and marquisate of Provence. In 1114, Duke William IX of Aquitaine , who claimed Toulouse by right of his wife Philippa , daughter of Count William IV , invaded

6560-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

6642-637: Was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to

6724-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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