![]() ![]() The language comes from Nabataean Aramaic script and has been used since the 4th century classical era belonging to the “Semitic” group of languages of Hebrew and Aramaic.īy the 8th century CE, the Arabic language began spreading throughout the MENA, as many people converted to Islam, and were obliged to pray in Arabic. Arabic originated from nomadic tribes in the desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula. The word “Arab” means “nomad” in one camp, in another it is derived from “pure or mixed”. The march north and conquest began in the mid-6th century, across the Persian and Byzantine territories and it was to spread the faith – Islam which was rooted in the Arabic language – not their ethnicity. He says that the first reference to the term “Arab” was in 834BC in the Bible and “the race existed in Syria below Palmyra and top of Saudi Arabia, ie, in the desert between them.”īefore the regions were invaded by the “Arabs” from down south in the Arabian Peninsula, there were existing civilisations. Robert Hoyland, a professor of archeology and history at NYU, spent considerable time in Syria and Yemen until the wars started and now teaches at NYU in Dubai. There is no getting away from that ethnocentric mindset that mash-up countries, ethnicities, religions, cultures and languages by referring to the regions, not as the Arabic speaking world, not as the Middle East or North Africa, but as “Arabs” and the “Arab world.” We wouldn’t refer to Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the USA as “English” or the “English world” but most likely, the English-speaking world. In researching for meanings, definitions and categorisations of the term or the regions, there are no definitive answers to populations, countries, sects and languages that accurately agree on what constitutes the MENA. One has to have the courage to tackle and be truthful to the facts without prejudice.”Īnd he was right. In my initial contact with Zalloua for this story he cautioned that: “This is a very complex and convoluted topic, very politically charged. It does not define or determine an identity, or culture or an ethnicity, it uncovers stories from our past but does not reveal who we really are.” Zalloua says, “DNA is the most powerful tool that eradicated the word race and embraced the word ethnic background. Lebanese biologist, Dr Pierre Zalloua, whose wide body of work includes the National Geographic’s Genographic project – an ambitious worldwide genetic mapping of human history – has a huge interest in this topic and has dedicated a lot of his work to deconstructing the misleading current definitions of identities in general. Yet in this instance, the global membership I had been assigned, told me I belong to others. They and their lifestyle were alien to me. ![]() As a Lebanese-Australian who lived in Libya as a child and then later worked for the Nine Network Australia during a Gulf war assignment in Saudi Arabia, I found both countries terrifying. The dialects differed wildly when I was in Egypt and even greater when dealing with Iraqis and Libyans. The list goes on.ĭuring an assignment in Israel and Palestine, my Arabic dialect clearly defined my roots from the local Palestinians. Syria’s once native language that it shared with Iraq and Iran was Assyrian. Lebanon’s native language was Phoenician or Canaan, which was also spoken in coastal Syria, northern coastal Israel and Cyprus. In the case of Lebanon, their version is what I call frou-frou Arabic due to lasting French influences. ![]() Arabic in North Africa is almost incomprehensible to an Arabic speaker from the Levant such as Lebanon. ![]() The MENA consist of many countries and each speaks its own form of Arabic patois, a clear indication of their nationality. Perhaps it is the globalisation of things that has made it acceptable to do away with the specifics of identity? A Google Books search suggests the usage of these terms has shot up to almost 400% since the 1800s. ![]()
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