Modern South Arabian Languages
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Modern South Arabian Languages
The Modern South Arabian languages (MSALs), also known as Eastern South Semitic languages, are a group of endangered languages spoken by small populations inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen and Oman, and Socotra Island. Together with the modern Ethiopian Semitic languages, the Western branch, they form the South Semitic sub-branch of the Afroasiatic language family's Semitic branch. Classification In his glottochronology-based classification, Alexander Militarev presents the Modern South Arabian languages as a South Semitic branch opposed to a North Semitic branch that includes all the other Semitic languages. They are no longer considered to be descendants of the Old South Arabian language, as was once thought, but instead "nephews". Despite the name, they are not closely related to the Arabic language. Languages * Mehri: the largest Modern South Arabian language, with over 165,000 speakers. Most Mehri speakers, around 76,000, live in Oman, but around 50,000 live in ...
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Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and Oman to the Oman–Yemen border, northeast and shares maritime borders with Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. Yemen is the second-largest Arabs, Arab sovereign state in the peninsula, occupying , with a coastline stretching about . Its constitutionally stated Capital city, capital, and largest city, is Sanaa. As of 2021, Yemen has an estimated population of some 30.4 million. In ancient times, Yemen was the home of the Sabaeans, a trading state that included parts of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. Later in 275 AD, the Himyarite Kingdom was influenced by Judaism. Christianity arrived in the fourth century. Islam spread quickly in the seventh century and Yemenite troops were crucial in the early Islamic conquests. Several Dynasty, dynasties ...
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Ethiopian Semitic Languages
Ethiopian Semitic (also Ethio-Semitic, Ethiosemitic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian) is a family of languages spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan. They form the western branch of the South Semitic languages, itself a sub-branch of Semitic, part of the Afroasiatic language family. With 21,811,600 total speakers as of 2007, including around 4,000,000 second language speakers, Amharic is the most widely spoken language of Ethiopia and second-most commonly spoken Semitic language in the world (after Arabic). Tigrinya has 7 million speakers and is the most widely spoken language in Eritrea. There is a small population of Tigre speakers in Sudan, and it is the second-most spoken language in Eritrea. The Ge'ez language has a literary history in its own Ge'ez script going back to the first century AD. It is no longer spoken but remains the liturgical language of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, as well as their respective Eastern Catholic counterparts. The "homeland ...
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Khuriya Muriya Islands
The Khuriya Muriya Islands (also ''Kuria Muria'', ''Kooria Mooria'', ''Curia Muria'') ( ar, جزر خوريا موريا; transliterated: ''Juzur Khurīyā Murīyā'' or ''Khūryān Mūryān)'' are a group of five islands in the Arabian Sea, off the southeastern coast of Oman. The islands form part of the province of Shalim and the Hallaniyat Islands in the governorate of Dhofar. History In antiquity the islands were called the ''Zenobii'' or ''Zenobiou Islands'' ( el, Ζηνοβίου νησία; '' la, Zenobii Insulae'') or ''Doliche'' ( el, Δολίχη). The islands were mentioned by several early writers including Ptolemy (vi. 7. § 47) who numbered them as seven small islands lying in Khuriya Muriya Bay ( el, Σαχαλίτης κόλπος; la, Sinus Sachalites), towards the entrance of the "Persian Gulf" (most likely the modern Gulf of Aden). In 1854 the sultan of Muscat (later Muscat and Oman, now Oman) presented the islands to Queen Victoria as a gift and responsibili ...
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Oman–Yemen Border
The Oman–Yemen border is 294 km (183 mi) in length and runs from the tripoint with Saudi Arabia in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south. Description The border consists essentially of a single straight line orientated NW-SE, from the Saudi tripoint down to the Arabian Sea coast at Ras Darbat Ali. The exception is a small triangular 'kink' roughly halfway along the boundary line, which juts into Yemen so as to include the town of Habarut within Oman. Topographically the border traverses the Rub' al Khali desert in the north and the Jabal Qamar in the Dhofar Mountains in the south. History The far east of what is today Yemen historically formed the Sultanate of Mahra, which became part of Britain's Aden Protectorate in 1866, though retaining a degree of autonomy. In this period Oman was under an informal British protectorate. Oman had asserted its rule over the south-western Dhofar region in 1829. A border between the Aden and Oman was not demarcated duri ...
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Dhofar Governorate
The Dhofar Governorate ( ar, مُحَافَظَة ظُفَار, Muḥāfaẓat Ẓufār) is the largest of the 11 Governorates in the Sultanate of Oman in terms of area. It lies in Southern Oman, on the eastern border with Yemen's Al Mahrah Governorate. It is a rather mountainous area that covers and has a population of 416,458 as of the 2020 census. The largest city, as well as capital of the Governorate, is Salalah. Historically, the region was a source of frankincense. The local variety of Arabic is Dhofari Arabic, which is quite distinct from that of the rest of Oman and from Yemen. History Archaeology At ''Aybut Al-Auwal'' ("First Aybut") in Wadi Aybut (west-central Nejd), a site was discovered in 2011 containing more than 100 surface scatters of stone tools belonging to a regionally specific lithic industry, the late Nubian Complex, known previously only from Northeast Africa. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates place the Arabian Nubian Complex at 106,00 ...
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Dhofar Rebellion
The Dhofar Rebellion, also known as the Dhofar War or the Omani Civil War, was waged from 1963 to 1976 in the province of Dhofar against the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. The war began with the formation of the Dhofar Liberation Front, a group which aimed to create an independent state in Dhofar, free from the rule of the Omani Sultan Said bin Taimur. The rebels also held the broader goals of Arab nationalism which included ending British influence in the Persian Gulf region. The war initially took the form of a low level insurgency with guerrilla warfare being used against Omani forces and the foreign presence in the country. A number of factors such as the British withdrawal from Aden and support from China and the Soviet Union brought the rebels increased success, with the communists controlling the entirety of the Jebel region by the late 1960s. The 1970 Omani coup d'état led to the overthrow of Sultan Said bin Taimur by his reformist son Qaboos bin Said who was backed by ...
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Socotra
Socotra or Soqotra (; ar, سُقُطْرَىٰ ; so, Suqadara) is an island of the Republic of Yemen in the Indian Ocean, under the ''de facto'' control of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist participant in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. Lying between the Guardafui Channel and the Arabian Sea and near major shipping routes, Socotra is the largest of the four islands in the Socotra archipelago. Since 2013, the archipelago has constituted the Socotra Governorate. The island of Socotra represents around 95% of the landmass of the Socotra archipelago. It lies south of the Arabian Peninsula, but is considered to be part of Africa. The island is isolated and home to a high number of endemic species. Up to a third of its plant life is endemic. It has been described as "the most alien-looking place on Earth." The island measures in length and in width. In 2008 Socotra was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2018, the United Arab Emirates invaded ...
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Mehri People
The Mehri (var. al-Mahrah, al-Meheri, al-Mahri or al-Mahra ( ar, المهرة), also known as the al-Mahrah tribe ( ar, قبيلة المهرة), are a Semitic ethnic group primarily inhabiting South Arabia and the Guardafui Channel island of Socotra. Origin They are descended from Mahra bin Heydan bin 'Amr bin el-Hafi Quda'a bin Malik bin 'Amr bin Murra bin Zeyd bin Malik bin Ḥimyar. Which means Mahra son of Heydan son of 'Amr son of el-Hafi Quda'a son of Malik son of 'Amr son of Murra son of Zeyd son of Malik son of Ḥimyar. Distribution The Mehri are one of the largest tribes in the Al Mahrah Governorate of Yemen and in the island of Socotra and Dhofar Governorate of Oman. Mehri group members are also found in other countries in the Arabian Peninsula, mainly Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Somalia. According to ''Ethnologue'', there are around 115,200 total Mehri speakers. Of those, 50,000 live in Yemen (2011), 50,800 in Oman (2000), and 14,400 in K ...
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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab world, and the largest in Western Asia and the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country off the east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. Its capital and largest city is Riyadh. The country is home to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern-day Saudi Ar ...
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Arabic Language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston, 2011. Having emerged in the 1st century, it is named after the Arab people; the term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula, as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece. Since the 7th century, Arabic has been characterized by diglossia, with an opposition between a standard prestige language—i.e., Literary Arabic: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Classical Arabic—and diverse vernacular varieties, which serve as mother tongues. Colloquial dialects vary significantly from MSA, impeding mutual intelligibility. MSA is only acquired through formal education and is not spoken natively. It is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written m ...
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Old South Arabian
Old South Arabian (or Ṣayhadic or Yemenite) is a group of four closely related extinct languages spoken in the far southern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. They were written in the Ancient South Arabian script. There were a number of other Old South Arabian languages (e.g. Awsānian), of which very little evidence has survived, however. A pair of possible surviving Sayhadic languages is attested in the Razihi language and Faifi language spoken in far north-west of Yemen, though these varieties of speech have both Arabic and Sayhadic features, and it is difficult to classify them as either Arabic dialects with a Sayhadic substratum, or Sayhadic languages that have been restructured under pressure of Arabic. Classification issues It was originally thought that all four members of this group were dialects of one Old South Arabian language, but in the mid-twentieth century, linguist A.F.L. Beeston finally proved that they did in fact constitute independent languages. The Ol ...
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Russian State University For The Humanities
The Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH, RGGU; russian: Росси́йский госуда́рственный гуманита́рный университе́т, РГГУ, translit=Rossijskij gosudarstvennyj gumanitarnyj universitet, RGGU), is a university in Moscow, Russia with over 25,000 students. It was created in 1991 as the result of the merger of the Moscow Urban University of the People (est. 1908) and the Moscow State University for History and Archives (est. 1930). It is one of the leading universities for humanities in the Russian Federation. History The Moscow Urban University of the People was founded in 1908 on the initiative of the Russian patron of the arts, , and played a role in Russian higher education from its inception. It was the center of enlightened and moral education right up to 1918, realizing the progressive principles of alternative education in conjunction with a sound educational foundation available to all. The Moscow State Institut ...
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