1.
Tanzania
–
Tanzania /ˌtænzəˈniːə/, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in Eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. Parts of the country are in Southern Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, Africas highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania. Tanzanias population of 51.82 million is diverse, composed of ethnic, linguistic. Dar es Salaam, the capital, retains most government offices and is the countrys largest city, principal port. Tanzania is a one party dominant state with the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in power, from its formation until 1992, it was the only legally permitted party in the country. Elections for president and all National Assembly seats were last held in October 2015, the CCM holds approximately 75% of the seats in the assembly. Prehistoric population migrations include Southern Cushitic speakers, who are ancestral to the Iraqw, Gorowa, and Burunge and who moved south from Ethiopia into Tanzania. Based on linguistic evidence, there may also have two movements into Tanzania of Eastern Cushitic people at about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. These movements took place at about the time as the settlement of the iron-making Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria. They brought with them the west African planting tradition and the staple of yams. They subsequently migrated out of these regions across the rest of Tanzania, European colonialism began in mainland Tanzania during the late 19th century when Germany formed German East Africa, which gave way to British rule following World War I. The mainland was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction, following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Tanzania is mountainous and densely forested in the northeast, where Mount Kilimanjaro is located, three of Africas Great Lakes are partly within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africas largest lake, and Lake Tanganyika, the eastern shore is hot and humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibars largest marine protected area, over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa. Among the languages spoken in Tanzania are all four of Africas language families, Bantu, Cushitic, Nilotic, Swahili and English are Tanzanias official languages. In connection with his Ujamaa social policies, President Nyerere encouraged the use of Swahili, approximately 10% of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, and up to 90% speak it as a second language. Most Tanzanians thus speak both Swahili and a language, many educated Tanzanians are trilingual, also speaking English
Tanzania
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An ancient stone chopping tool discovered at
Olduvai Gorge and currently on display at the
British Museum
Tanzania
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Flag
Tanzania
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General
Lettow-Vorbeck in
Dar es Salaam with a British Officer (left) and German Officer (right), March 1919
Tanzania
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Arusha Declaration Monument
2.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as DR Congo, DRC, DROC, East Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo is a country located in Central Africa. From 1971 to 1997 it was named, and is still called, Zaire. It is the second-largest country in Africa by area and eleventh largest in the world, the Congolese Civil Wars, which began in 1996, brought about the end of Mobutu Sese Sekos 32-year reign and devastated the country. These wars ultimately involved nine African nations, multiple groups of UN peacekeepers and twenty armed groups, besides the capital, Kinshasa, the other major cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. DR Congos largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of DRCs exports in 2012, as of 2015, according to the Human Development Index, DR Congo has a low level of human development, ranking 176 out of 187 countries. The country was known officially as the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1965 to 27 October 1971, in 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the change was not put into practice. The countrys name was restored by former president Laurent-Désiré Kabila following the fall of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, some historians think that Bantu peoples began settling in the extreme northwest of Central Africa at the beginning of the 5th century and then gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques, the people living in the south and southwest were mostly San Bushmen and hunter-gatherer groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture. This led to the displacement of the groups in the east and southeast. The 10th century marked the expansion of the Bantu in West-Central Africa. Rising populations soon made intricate local, regional and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in salt, iron. Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s and it was first led by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, who undertook his explorations under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. The eastern regions of the precolonial Congo were heavily disrupted by constant slave raiding, mainly from Arab–Swahili slave traders such as the infamous Tippu Tip, Leopold had designs on what was to become the Congo as a colony. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and he named it the Congo Free State. Leopolds rėgime began various infrastructure projects, such as construction of the railway ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville. Nearly all such projects were aimed at making it easier to increase the assets which Leopold. In the Free State, colonists brutalized the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles, rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Village attacked by Arab-Swahili slavers near
Nyangwe, end of 19th century
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Flag
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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View of
Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Force Publique soldiers in the Belgian Congo in 1918. At its peak, the Force Publique had around 19,000 African soldiers, led by 420 white officers.
3.
Kenya
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Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country in Africa and a founding member of the East African Community. Its capital and largest city is Nairobi and it is bordered by Tanzania to the south and southwest, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east. Kenya covers 581,309 km2, and had a population of approximately 48 million people in January 2017, Kenya has a warm and humid tropical climate on its Indian Ocean coastline. The climate is cooler in the grasslands around the capital city, Nairobi, and especially closer to Mount Kenya. Further inland are highlands in Central and Rift Valley regions where tea, in the West are Nyanza and Western regions, there is an equatorial, hot and dry climate which becomes humid around Lake Victoria, the largest tropical fresh-water lake in the world. This gives way to temperate and forested areas in the neighbouring western region. The north-eastern regions along the border with Somalia and Ethiopia are arid and semi-arid areas with near-desert landscapes, Kenya is known for its world class athletes in track and field and rugby. The African Great Lakes region, which Kenya is a part of, has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic period, by the first millennium AD, the Bantu expansion had reached the area from West-Central Africa. Bantu and Nilotic populations together constitute around 97% of the nations residents, European and Arab presence in coastal Mombasa dates to the Early Modern period, European exploration of the interior began in the 19th century. The British Empire established the East Africa Protectorate in 1895, which starting in 1920 gave way to the Kenya Colony, Kenya obtained independence in December 1963. Following a referendum in August 2010 and adoption of a new constitution, Kenya is now divided into 47 semi-autonomous counties, the capital, Nairobi, is a regional commercial hub. The economy of Kenya is the largest by GDP in East, agriculture is a major employer, the country traditionally exports tea and coffee and has more recently begun to export fresh flowers to Europe. The service industry is also an economic driver. Additionally, Kenya is a member of the East African Community trading bloc, the Republic of Kenya is named after Mount Kenya. The origin of the name Kenya is not clear, but perhaps linked to the Kikuyu, Embu and Kamba words Kirinyaga, Kirenyaa, if so, then the British may not so much have mispronounced it, as misspelled it. In the 19th century, the German explorer Johann Ludwig Krapf was staying with the Bantu Kamba people when he first spotted the mountain. On asking for the name of the mountain, he was told Kĩ-Nyaa or Kĩĩma- Kĩĩnyaa probably because the pattern of black rock, the Agikuyu, who inhabit the slopes of Mt. Kenya, call it Kĩrĩma Kĩrĩnyaga in Kikuyu, which is quite similar to the Kamba name. Ludwig Krapf recorded the name as both Kenia and Kegnia believed by most to be a corruption of the Kamba version, others say that this was—on the contrary—a very precise notation of a correct African pronunciation /ˈkɛnjə/
Kenya
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A giraffe at
Nairobi National Park, with Nairobi's skyline in background
Kenya
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Flag
Kenya
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The
Turkana boy, a 1.6-million-year-old
hominid fossil belonging to
Homo erectus.
Kenya
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A traditional
Swahili carved wooden door in
Lamu.
4.
Mozambique
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It is separated from Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from farther north and west. Swahili commercial ports existed along the coasts until the arrival of Europeans, the area was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonised by Portugal from 1505. The country was an important place where Somali merchants enslaved the local population, after over four centuries of Portuguese rule, Mozambique gained independence in 1975, becoming the Peoples Republic of Mozambique shortly thereafter. After only two years of independence, the country descended into an intense and protracted civil war lasting from 1977 to 1992, in 1994, Mozambique held its first multiparty elections and has remained a relatively stable presidential republic. However, since 2013, following more than 20 years of peace, Mozambique is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. Mozambique is endowed with rich and extensive natural resources, the countrys economy is based largely on agriculture, but industry is growing, mainly food and beverages, chemical manufacturing, and aluminium and petroleum production. The countrys tourism sector is also growing, South Africa is Mozambiques main trading partner and source of foreign direct investment. Belgium, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain are also among the countrys most important economic partners, since 2001, Mozambiques annual average GDP growth has been among the worlds highest. However, the ranks among the lowest in GDP per capita, human development, measures of inequality. The only official language of Mozambique is Portuguese, which is mostly as a second language by about half of the population. Common native languages include Makhuwa, Sena, and Swahili, the countrys population of around 24 million is composed overwhelmingly of Bantu people. The largest religion in Mozambique is Christianity, with significant minorities following Islam, the island-town was the capital of the Portuguese colony until 1898, when it was moved south to Lourenço Marques. Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of Bantu-speaking people migrated from the west and north through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and they established agricultural communities or societies based on herding cattle. They brought with them the technology for smelting and smithing iron, from the late first millennium AD, vast Indian Ocean trade networks extended as far south into Mozambique as the ancient port town of Chibuene. Connections are evident at sites including Manyikeni for 11–14th century ties with the inland Great Zimbabwe kingdoms, from about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east. The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, the Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of prazos tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. Historically within Mozambique there was slavery, Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab Muslim traders and Portuguese and other European traders as well
Mozambique
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Depiction of Arab slave traders and their captives along the Ruvuma river
Mozambique
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Flag
Mozambique
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The
Island of Mozambique is a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay on the
Nacala coast of northern Mozambique, first explored by Europeans in the late 15th century.
Mozambique
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Portuguese language printing and typesetting class, 1930
5.
Mwani language
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The Mwani language, or Kimwani, is spoken on the coast of the Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique, including the Quirimbas Islands. Although it shares high lexical similarity with Swahili, it is not intelligible with it and it is spoken by around 120,000 people. Speakers of Kimwani also use Portuguese, Swahili and Makhuwa language, kiwibo, the dialect of the Island of Ibo is the prestige dialect. Kimwani is also called Mwani and Ibo, the Name Kimwani comes from the word Mwani, meaning beach. The prefix Ki means the language of, so Kimwani literally means language of the beach, Kimwani is unusual among sub-Saharan languages in having lost the feature of lexical tone. It does not have the penultimate stress typical of Swahili, it has movable pitch accent, labialization of consonants and palatalization of r are frequent. Nasalization of vowels occurs only before a consonant n followed by a consonant. Kimwani has five vowel phonemes, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ and it does not have a distinction of closed and open mid vowels typical of Portuguese, French or Italian. The pronunciation of the phoneme /i/ stands between International Phonetic Alphabet and, vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. Kimwani has no diphthongs, in combinations, each vowel is pronounced separately. Two symbols in a table cell denote the voiceless and voiced consonant, Kimwani can be spelled in three ways, using orthography similar to Swahili, using a slightly modified spelling system used in Mozambique schools or using a Portuguese-based spelling. A sketch of Kimwani, Africa & Asia, #2, pp. 88–110, ISSN 1650-2019 Namuna ya kufifunda kufyoma na kwandika, SIL & JUWA, Pemba, Cabo Delgado, Mozambique
Mwani language
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The area where Kimwani is spoken is in gray.
6.
Burundi
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It is also considered part of Central Africa. The southwestern border is adjacent to Lake Tanganyika, the Twa, Hutu and Tutsi peoples have lived in Burundi for at least 500 years. For more than 200 of those years, Burundi was an independent kingdom, until the beginning of the twentieth century, after the First World War and Germanys defeat, it ceded the territory to Belgium. Both Germans and Belgians ruled Burundi and Rwanda as a European colony known as Ruanda-Urundi, despite common misconceptions, Burundi and Rwanda had never been under common rule until the time of European colonisation. The European intervention exacerbated social differences between the Tutsi and Hutu, and contributed to political unrest in the region. Bouts of ethnic cleansing and ultimately two civil wars and genocides during the 1970s and again in the 1990s left the country undeveloped, Burundis political system is that of a presidential representative democratic republic based upon a multi-party state. The President of Burundi is the head of state and head of government, there are currently 21 registered parties in Burundi. On 13 March 1992, Tutsi coup leader Pierre Buyoya established a constitution, six years later, on 6 June 1998, the constitution was changed, broadening National Assemblys seats and making provisions for two vice-presidents. Because of the Arusha Accord, Burundi enacted a government in 2000. In October 2016, Burundi informed the UN of its intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, Burundi remains an overwhelmingly rural society, with just 13% of the population living in urban areas in 2013. The population density of around 315 people per kilometre is the second highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Roughly 85% of the population are of Hutu ethnic origin, 15% are Tutsi, the official languages of Burundi are French and Kirundi, although Swahili can be found spoken along the Tanzanian border. One of the smallest countries in Africa, Burundi has an equatorial climate, Burundi is a part of the Albertine Rift, the western extension of the East African Rift. The country lies on a plateau in the centre of Africa. The highest peak, Mount Heha at 2,685 m, lies to the southeast of the capital, there are two national parks, Kibira National Park to the northwest, Ruvubu National Park to the northeast. Both were established in 1982 to conserve wildlife populations, Burundis lands are mostly agricultural or pasture. Settlement by rural populations has led to deforestation, soil erosion, deforestation of the entire country is almost completely due to overpopulation, with a mere 600 km2 remaining and an ongoing loss of about 9% per annum. In addition to poverty, Burundians often have to deal with corruption, weak infrastructure, poor access to health and education services, Burundi is densely populated and has had substantial emigration as young people seek opportunities elsewhere
Burundi
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Independence Square and monument in Bujumbura.
Burundi
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Flag
Burundi
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View of the capital city Bujumbura in 2006.
Burundi
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Pierre Nkurunziza, President of Burundi.
7.
Rwanda
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Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a sovereign state in central and east Africa and one of the smallest countries on the African mainland. Located a few south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi. Rwanda is in the African Great Lakes region and is elevated, its geography is dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the east. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two seasons and two dry seasons each year. The population is young and predominantly rural, with a density among the highest in Africa, Rwandans are drawn from just one cultural and linguistic group, the Banyarwanda, although within this group there are three subgroups, the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. The Twa are a pygmy people descended from Rwandas earliest inhabitants. Christianity is the largest religion in the country, the language is Kinyarwanda, spoken by most Rwandans, with English. Rwanda has a system of government. The president is Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, who took office in 2000, Rwanda today has low corruption compared with neighbouring countries, although human rights organisations report suppression of opposition groups, intimidation and restrictions on freedom of speech. The country has been governed by an administrative hierarchy since pre-colonial times. Rwanda is one of two countries with a female majority in the national parliament. Hunter gatherers settled the territory in the stone and iron ages, the population coalesced first into clans and then into kingdoms. The Kingdom of Rwanda dominated from the century, with the Tutsi kings conquering others militarily, centralising power. Germany colonised Rwanda in 1884 as part of German East Africa, followed by Belgium, both European nations ruled through the kings and perpetuated a pro-Tutsi policy. The Hutu population revolted in 1959 and they massacred numerous Tutsi and ultimately established an independent, Hutu-dominated state in 1962. The Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front launched a war in 1990. Social tensions erupted in the 1994 genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 1.3 million Tutsi, the RPF ended the genocide with a military victory. Rwandas economy suffered heavily during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, but has since strengthened, the economy is based mostly on subsistence agriculture
Rwanda
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A reconstruction of the
King of Rwanda 's palace at
Nyanza
Rwanda
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Flag
Rwanda
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Juvénal Habyarimana, president from 1973 to 1994
Rwanda
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Human skulls at the
Nyamata Genocide Memorial
8.
Uganda
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Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, Uganda is the worlds second most populous landlocked country after Ethiopia. The southern part of the country includes a portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region, Uganda also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally a modified equatorial climate. Uganda takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a portion of the south of the country. The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago, beginning in 1894, the area was ruled as a protectorate by the British, who established administrative law across the territory. Uganda gained independence from Britain on 9 October 1962, luganda, a central language, is widely spoken across the country, and several other languages are also spoken including Runyoro, Runyankole, Rukiga, and Luo. The president of Uganda is Yoweri Museveni, who came to power in January 1986 after a protracted guerrilla war. The ancestors of the Ugandans were hunter-gatherers until 1, 700-2,300 years ago, Bantu-speaking populations, who were probably from central Africa, migrated to the southern parts of the country. According to oral tradition, the Empire of Kitara covered an important part of the lakes area, from the northern lakes Albert and Kyoga to the southern lakes Victoria. Bunyoro-Kitara is claimed as the antecedent of the Buganda, Toro, Ankole, some Luo invaded the area of Bunyoro and assimilated with the Bantu there, establishing the Babiito dynasty of the current Omukama of Bunyoro-Kitara. Arab traders moved inland from the Indian Ocean coast of East Africa in the 1830s and they were followed in the 1860s by British explorers searching for the source of the Nile. British Anglican missionaries arrived in the kingdom of Buganda in 1877 and were followed by French Catholic missionaries in 1879, the British government chartered the Imperial British East Africa Company to negotiate trade agreements in the region beginning in 1888. From 1886, there were a series of wars in Buganda. Because of civil unrest and financial burdens, IBEAC claimed that it was unable to maintain their occupation in the region, in the 1890s,32,000 labourers from British India were recruited to East Africa under indentured labour contracts to construct the Uganda Railway. Most of the surviving Indians returned home, but 6,724 decided to remain in East Africa after the lines completion, subsequently, some became traders and took control of cotton ginning and sartorial retail. British naval ships unknowingly carried rats that contained the bubonic plague and these rats spread the disease throughout Uganda. From 1900 to 1920, a sleeping sickness epidemic in the part of Uganda, along the north shores of Lake Victoria
Uganda
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Left: Construction of the
Owen Falls Dam in
Jinja. Right: A street in Uganda in the 1950s.
Uganda
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Flag
Uganda
Uganda
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Mount Kadam, Uganda.
9.
Comoros
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Other countries near the Comoros are Tanzania to the northwest and the Seychelles to the northeast. Its capital is Moroni, on Grande Comore, the Union of the Comoros has three official languages – Comorian, Arabic and French. The religion of the majority of the population is Islam, at 1,660 km2, excluding the contested island of Mayotte, the Comoros is the third-smallest African nation by area. The population, excluding Mayotte, is estimated at 798,000, as a nation formed at a crossroads of different civilisations, the archipelago is noted for its diverse culture and history. The archipelago was first inhabited by Bantu speakers who came from East Africa, supplemented by Arab, the country consists of three major islands and numerous smaller islands, all in the volcanic Comoros archipelago. The major islands are known by their French names, northwestern-most Grande Comore, Mohéli. France has vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions that would affirm Comorian sovereignty over the island, in addition, Mayotte became an overseas department and a region of France in 2011 following a referendum passed overwhelmingly. It became part of the French colonial empire in the 19th century before becoming independent in 1975, since declaring independence, the country has experienced more than 20 coups détat or attempted coups, with various heads of state assassinated. As of 2008 about half the population lived below the poverty line of US$1.25 a day. The Comoros is the state to be a member of the African Union, Francophonie, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League. The name Comoros derives from the Arabic word قمر qamar, the first human inhabitants of the Comoro Islands are thought to have been Polynesian and Melanesian settlers, Malays and Indonesians, travelling by boat. The islands of the Comoros were populated by a succession of peoples from the coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, the Malay Archipelago, and Madagascar. Bantu-speaking settlers reached the islands as a part of the greater Bantu expansion that took place in Africa throughout the first millennium, according to pre-Islamic mythology, a jinni dropped a jewel, which formed a great circular inferno. This became the Karthala volcano, which created the island of the Comoros, development of the Comoros was divided into phases. The earliest reliably recorded phase is the Dembeni phase, during each island maintained a single. From the eleventh to the centuries, trade with the island of Madagascar and merchants from the Middle East flourished, smaller villages emerged. Many Comorians can trace their genealogies to ancestors from Yemen, mainly Hadhramaut, and Oman. According to legend, in 632, upon hearing of Islam, islanders are said to have dispatched an emissary, Mtswa-Mwindza, to Mecca—but by the time he arrived there, the Islamic prophet Muhammad had died
Comoros
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A large
dhow with
lateen sail rigs.
Comoros
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Flag
Comoros
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A
vanilla plantation.
Comoros
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An 1808 map refers to the islands as "Camora".
10.
Mayotte
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Mayotte is an insular department and region of France officially named Département de Mayotte. It consists of an island, Grande-Terre, a smaller island, Petite-Terre. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Southeast Africa, the department status of Mayotte is recent and the region remains the poorest in France. Mayotte is nevertheless much more prosperous than the countries of the Mozambique Channel. Mayottes area is 374 square kilometres and, with its 212,645 people, is densely populated at 569 per km². The biggest city and prefecture is Mamoudzou on Grande-Terre, however, the Dzaoudzi–Pamandzi International Airport is located on the neighbouring island of Petite-Terre. The territory is part of the Comoro Islands. The territory is known as Maore, the native name of its main island. The language of the majority is Shimaore, a Bantu language variety closely related to the varieties in the neighbouring Comoros islands, the second most widely spoken native language is Kibushi, a Malagasy language variety most closely related to the Sakalava dialect of Malagasy with influences from Shimaore. The vast majority of the population is Muslim, the island was populated from neighbouring East Africa with later arrival of Arabs, who brought the Islamic religion. A sultanate was established in 1500, the people of Mayotte voted to remain politically a part of France in the 1974 referendum. The term Mayotte may refer to all of the islands, of which the largest is known as Maore and includes Maores surrounding islands, most notably Pamanzi. The main island, Grande-Terre, geologically the oldest of the Comoro Islands, is 39 kilometres long and 22 kilometres wide, because of the volcanic rock, the soil is relatively rich in some areas. A coral reef encircling much of the island ensures protection for ships, Dzaoudzi was the capital of Mayotte until 1977. It is situated on Petite-Terre, which at 10 square kilometres is the largest of several islets adjacent to Maore, in 1500, the Maore or Mawuti sultanate was established on the island. In 1503, Mayotte was observed by Portuguese explorers, but not colonized, in 1832, Mayotte was conquered by Andriantsoly, former king of Iboina on Madagascar, in 1833, it was conquered by the neighbouring sultanate of Mwali. On 19 November 1835, Mayotte was again conquered by the Ndzuwani Sultanate, however, in 1836 it regained its independence under a last local Sultan. Mayotte was purchased by France in 1841 and it was the only island in the archipelago that voted in referendums in 1974 and 1976 to retain its link with France and forgo independence
Mayotte
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Beach scenery in Mayotte.
Mayotte
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Flag
Mayotte
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Sea near
Mamoudzou.
Mayotte
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A view of
Sada including mosque.
11.
Zambia
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The capital city is Lusaka, in the south-central part of Zambia. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the northwest, originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region was affected by the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. After visits by European explorers in the century, Zambia became the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia towards the end of the nineteenth century. For most of the period, Zambia was governed by an administration appointed from London with the advice of the British South Africa Company. On 24 October 1964, Zambia became independent of the United Kingdom, Kaundas socialist United National Independence Party maintained power from 1964 until 1991. Kaunda played a key role in diplomacy, cooperating closely with the United States in search of solutions to conflicts in Rhodesia, Angola. From 1972 to 1991 Zambia was a one-party state with the UNIP as the legal political party under the motto One Zambia. Kaunda was succeeded by Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in 1991, beginning a period of social-economic growth, after Mwanawasas death, Rupiah Banda presided as Acting President before being elected President in 2008. Holding office for three years, Banda stepped down after his defeat in the 2011 elections by Patriotic Front party leader Michael Sata. Sata died on 28 October 2014, the second Zambian president to die in office, Guy Scott served briefly as interim president until new elections were held on 20 January 2015, in which Edgar Lungu was elected as the sixth President. In 2010, the World Bank named Zambia one of the worlds fastest economically reformed countries, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa is headquartered in Lusaka. The territory of what is now Zambia was known as Northern Rhodesia from 1911 and it was renamed Zambia at independence in 1964. The new name of Zambia was derived from the Zambezi river, the area of modern Zambia is known to have been inhabited by the Khoisan until around AD300, when migrating Bantu began to settle around these areas. These early hunter-gatherer groups were either annihilated or absorbed by subsequent more organised Bantu groups. Archaeological excavation work on the Zambezi Valley and Kalambo Falls show a succession of human cultures, in particular, ancient camping site tools near the Kalambo Falls have been radiocarbon dated to more than 36,000 year ago. The fossil skull remains of Broken Hill Man, dated between 300,000 and 125,000 years BC, further shows that the area was inhabited by pre-historic man. The early history of tribes of modern-day Zambia can only be gleaned from knowledge passed down by successive generations through word of mouth, in the 12th century, major waves of Bantu-speaking immigrants arrived during the Bantu expansion. Among them, the Tonga people were the first to settle in Zambia and are believed to have come from the east near the big sea, by the late 12th century, more advanced kingdoms and empires had been established in most regions of modern-day Zambia
Zambia
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A statue of
Scottish explorer and missionary
David Livingstone on the Zambian side of
Victoria Falls.
Zambia
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Flag
Zambia
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Cecil Rhodes
Zambia
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Mwata
Kazembe XVII Paul Kanyembo Lutaba, king of the Lunda people in Zambia in 1961.
12.
Malawi
–
Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, Malawi is over 118,000 km2 with an estimated population of 16,777,547. Its capital is Lilongwe, which is also Malawis largest city, the second largest is Blantyre, the third is Mzuzu, the name Malawi comes from the Maravi, an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area. The country is also nicknamed The Warm Heart of Africa, Malawi is among the smallest countries in Africa. Lake Malawi takes about a third of Malawis area, the area of Africa now known as Malawi was settled by migrating Bantu groups around the 10th century. Centuries later in 1891 the area was colonised by the British, in 1953 Malawi, then known as Nyasaland, a protectorate of the United Kingdom, became a protectorate within the semi-independent Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Federation was dissolved in 1963, in 1964 the protectorate over Nyasaland was ended and Nyasaland became an independent country under Queen Elizabeth II with the new name Malawi. Two years later it became a republic, upon gaining independence it became a one-party state under the presidency of Hastings Banda, who remained president until 1994, when he lost an election. Arthur Peter Mutharika is the current president, Malawi has a democratic, multi-party government. The country has a Malawian Defence Force that includes an army, a navy, Malawi is among the worlds least-developed countries. The economy is based in agriculture, with a largely rural population. The Malawian government depends heavily on aid to meet development needs. The Malawian government faces challenges in building and expanding the economy, improving education, healthcare, environmental protection, Malawi has a low life expectancy and high infant mortality. There is a prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which is a drain on the labour force. There is a population of native peoples, Asians and Europeans, with several languages spoken. Although there was periodic regional conflict fuelled in part by ethnic divisions in the past, by 2008 it had diminished considerably and the concept of a Malawian nationality had re-emerged. The area of Africa now known as Malawi had a small population of hunter-gatherers before waves of Bantu peoples began emigrating from the north around the 10th century. Although most of the Bantu peoples continued south, some remained permanently, by 1500 AD, the tribes had established the Kingdom of Maravi that reached from north of what is now Nkhotakota to the Zambezi River and from Lake Malawi to the Luangwa River in what is now Zambia
Malawi
–
1897
British Central Africa stamp issued by the United Kingdom
Malawi
Malawi
–
Malawi's first Prime Minister and later
President for Life, Dr.
Hastings Banda (left), with Tanzania's President
Nyerere
Malawi
–
Peter Mutharika, President of Malawi.
13.
Madagascar
–
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, and previously known as the Malagasy Republic, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Southeast Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar, and numerous smaller peripheral islands, consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot, over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The islands diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the growing human population. The first archaeological evidence for human foraging on Madagascar dates to 2000 BC, human settlement of Madagascar occurred between 350 BC and AD550 by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo. These were joined around AD1000 by Bantu migrants crossing the Mozambique Channel from East Africa, other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is divided into 18 or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands. Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar was ruled by an assortment of shifting sociopolitical alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, most of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles, the monarchy collapsed in 1897 when the island was absorbed into the French colonial empire, from which the island gained independence in 1960. The autonomous state of Madagascar has since undergone four major constitutional periods, since 1992, the nation has officially been governed as a constitutional democracy from its capital at Antananarivo. However, in an uprising in 2009, president Marc Ravalomanana was made to resign. Constitutional governance was restored in January 2014, when Hery Rajaonarimampianina was named president following a 2013 election deemed fair, Madagascar is a member of the United Nations, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and the Southern African Development Community. Madagascar belongs to the group of least developed countries, according to the United Nations, Malagasy and French are both official languages of the state. The majority of the population adheres to traditional beliefs, Christianity, ecotourism and agriculture, paired with greater investments in education, health, and private enterprise, are key elements of Madagascars development strategy. As of 2017, the economy has been weakened by the 2009-2013 political crisis, in the Malagasy language, the island of Madagascar is called Madagasikara and its people are referred to as Malagasy. The islands appellation Madagascar is not of origin, but rather was popularized in the Middle Ages by Europeans. On St. Laurences Day in 1500, Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias landed on the island, polos name was preferred and popularized on Renaissance maps. At 592,800 square kilometres, Madagascar is the worlds 47th largest country, the country lies mostly between latitudes 12°S and 26°S, and longitudes 43°E and 51°E. Neighboring islands include the French territory of Réunion and the country of Mauritius to the east, as well as the state of Comoros, the nearest mainland state is Mozambique, located to the west
Madagascar
–
The terraced paddy fields of the
central highlands of Madagascar (left) give way to tropical rainforest along the eastern coast (center) bordered by the shores of the
Indian Ocean (right).
Madagascar
–
Flag
Madagascar
Madagascar
–
The grassy plains that dominate the western landscape are dotted with stony massifs (left), patches of deciduous forest, and
baobab trees (center), while the south is characterized by desert and
spiny forests (right).
14.
South Sudan
–
South Sudan, officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in northeastern Africa that gained its independence from Sudan in 2011. Its current capital is Juba, which is also its largest city and it was planned that the capital city would be changed to the more centrally located Ramciel in the future before civil war broke out. It includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd, formed by the White Nile, following the First Sudanese Civil War, the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was formed in 1972 and lasted until 1983. A second Sudanese civil war soon developed and ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, later that year, southern autonomy was restored when an Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan was formed. South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011, following a referendum passed with 98. 83% of the vote. It is a United Nations member state, a state of the African Union, of the East African Community. In July 2012, South Sudan signed the Geneva Conventions, South Sudan has suffered ethnic violence and has been in a civil war since 2013, as of 2016 it has the second highest score on the Fragile States Index. The Nilotic people of South Sudan—the Acholi, Anyuak, Bari, Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Kaligi, Zande, the Azande, Mundu, Avukaya and Baka, who entered South Sudan in the 16th century—established the regions largest state of Equatoria Region. The Dinka are the largest, Nuer the second largest and Azande are the third-largest ethnic group in South Sudan while the Bari are fourth-largest. They are found in the Maridi, Yambio, and Tombura districts in the tropical rainforest belt of Western Equatoria, in the 18th century, the Avungara sib rose to power over the rest of Azande society and this domination continued into the 20th century. The major reasons include the history of British policy preference toward developing the Arab north. After Sudans first independent elections in 1958, the ignoring of the south by Khartoum led to uprisings, revolt. As of 2012, peoples include Acholi, Anyuak, Azande, Baka, Balanda Bviri, Bari, Boya, Didinga, Dinka, Jiye, Kaligi, Kuku, Lotuka, Mundari, Murie, Nilotic, Nuer, Shilluk, Toposa and Zande. Slavery had been an institution of Sudanese life throughout history, the slave trade in the south intensified in the 19th century and continued after the British had suppressed slavery in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Annual Sudanese slave raids into non-Muslim territories resulted in the capture of thousands of southern Sudanese. In the 19th century, the Azande fought the French, the Belgians, Egypt, under the rule of Khedive Ismail Pasha, first attempted to control the region in the 1870s, establishing the province of Equatoria in the southern portion. Egypts first governor was Samuel Baker, commissioned in 1869, followed by Charles George Gordon in 1874, the Mahdist Revolt of the 1880s destabilized the nascent province, and Equatoria ceased to exist as an Egyptian outpost in 1889. Important settlements in Equatoria included Lado, Gondokoro, Dufile and Wadelai, european colonial maneuverings in the region came to a head in 1898, when the Fashoda Incident occurred at present-day Kodok, Britain and France almost went to war over the region
South Sudan
–
John Garang de Mabior led the
Sudan People's Liberation Army until his death in 2005.
South Sudan
–
Flag
South Sudan
–
A South Sudanese girl at independence festivities
South Sudan
–
Salva Kiir Mayardit, the first President of South Sudan. His trademark
hat was a gift from United States President
George W. Bush.
15.
Language family
–
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. Linguists therefore describe the languages within a language family as being genetically related. Estimates of the number of living languages vary from 5,000 to 8,000, depending on the precision of ones definition of language, the 2013 edition of Ethnologue catalogs just over 7,000 living human languages. A living language is one that is used as the primary form of communication of a group of people. There are also dead and extinct languages, as well as some that are still insufficiently studied to be classified. Membership of languages in a family is established by comparative linguistics. Sister languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship, speakers of a language family belong to a common speech community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, individuals belonging to other speech communities may also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process. Genealogically related languages present shared retentions, that is, features of the proto-language that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing, for example, Germanic languages are Germanic in that they share vocabulary and grammatical features that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a unit, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a level. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, a top-level family is often called a phylum or stock. The closer the branches are to other, the closer the languages will be related. For example, the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance, there is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human ancestry that was verified statistically. Languages interpreted in terms of the phylogenetic tree of human languages are transmitted to a great extent vertically as opposed to horizontally. A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political considerations, thus, different sources give sometimes wildly different accounts of the number of languages within a family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one language to nearly twenty, most of the worlds languages are known to be related to others
Language family
–
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see
Distribution of languages in the world.
16.
Bantu languages
–
The Bantu languages, technically the Narrow Bantu languages, constitute a traditional branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, Bantu languages are spoken largely east and south of present-day Cameroon, that is, in the regions commonly known as Central Africa, Southeast Africa, and Southern Africa. Parts of the Bantu area include languages from other language families, the Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili, however, the majority of its speakers know it as a second language. According to Ethnologue, there are over 180 million L2 speakers, other major languages include Zulu with 27 million speakers and Shona with about 11 million speakers. Ethnologue separates the largely mutually intelligible Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, which, the Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in West Africa. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, the technical term Bantu, meaning human beings or simply people, was first used by Wilhelm Bleek, as this is reflected in many of the languages of this group. Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof, pursued extensive studies comparing the structures of Bantu languages. In recent times, the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid groups has been called into doubt, a coherent classification of Narrow Bantu will likely need to exclude many of the Zone A and perhaps Zone B languages. There is no true genealogical classification of the Bantu languages, the most widely used classification, the alphanumeric coding system developed by Guthrie, is mainly geographic. The two groups have described as having mirror-image tone systems, where Northwest Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages generally have a low tone. Northwest Bantu is clearly not a coherent family, but even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Guthrie system is the 1999 Tervuren proposal of Bastin, Coupez, and Mann. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few ways to distinguish Bantu languages. Nurse & Philippson evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, glottolog has incorporated many of these into their classification. The languages that share Dahls Law may also form a valid group, the infobox at right lists these together with various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-Bantu. The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the use of affixes. Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, the class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with the noun. Plural is indicated by a change of class, with a change of prefix
Bantu languages
–
Map showing the distribution of Bantu vs. other
African languages.
17.
Writing system
–
A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a form of information storage. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script, the general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have attributes of more than one category, in the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora, in a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Other categories include abjads, which differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Systems will also enable the stringing together of these groupings in order to enable a full expression of the language. The reading step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a range of thoughts. Soon after, writing provided a form of long distance communication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for a form of mass communication. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersand, are not directly linked to any specific language, every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven, once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no current in the spoken language. One of the benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines, thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field
Writing system
–
Writing systems
Writing system
–
Predominant national and selected regional or minority scripts
Writing system
–
Chinese characters (漢字) are morpho-syllabic. Each one represents a syllable with a distinct meaning, but some characters may have multiple meanings or pronunciations
Writing system
–
A Specimen of typefaces and styles, by
William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728
Cyclopaedia
18.
Latin script
–
Latin script is used as the standard method of writing in most Western and Central European languages, as well as in many languages in other parts of the world. Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the most widely adopted writing system in the world, Latin script is also the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet. The 26 most widespread letters are the contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The script is either called Roman script or Latin script, in reference to its origin in ancient Rome, in the context of transliteration, the term romanization or romanisation is often found. Unicode uses the term Latin as does the International Organization for Standardization, the numeral system is called the Roman numeral system, and the collection of the elements, Roman numerals. The numbers 1,2,3. are Latin/Roman script numbers for the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, the Latin alphabet spread, along with Latin, from the Italian Peninsula to the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The Latin script also came into use for writing the West Slavic languages and several South Slavic languages, the speakers of East Slavic languages generally adopted Cyrillic along with Orthodox Christianity. The Serbian language uses both scripts, with Cyrillic predominating in official communication and Latin elsewhere, as determined by the Law on Official Use of the Language and Alphabet. As late as 1500, the Latin script was limited primarily to the languages spoken in Western, Northern, the Orthodox Christian Slavs of Eastern and Southeastern Europe mostly used Cyrillic, and the Greek alphabet was in use by Greek-speakers around the eastern Mediterranean. The Arabic script was widespread within Islam, both among Arabs and non-Arab nations like the Iranians, Indonesians, Malays, and Turkic peoples, most of the rest of Asia used a variety of Brahmic alphabets or the Chinese script. It is used for many Austronesian languages, including the languages of the Philippines, Latin letters served as the basis for the forms of the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah, however, the sound values are completely different. In the late 19th century, the Romanians returned to the Latin alphabet, under French rule and Portuguese missionary influence, a Latin alphabet was devised for the Vietnamese language, which had previously used Chinese characters. In 1928, as part of Mustafa Kemal Atatürks reforms, the new Republic of Turkey adopted a Latin alphabet for the Turkish language, kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iranian-speaking Tajikistan, and the breakaway region of Transnistria kept the Cyrillic alphabet, chiefly due to their close ties with Russia. In the 1930s and 1940s, the majority of Kurds replaced the Arabic script with two Latin alphabets, although the only official Kurdish government uses an Arabic alphabet for public documents, the Latin Kurdish alphabet remains widely used throughout the region by the majority of Kurdish-speakers. In 2015, the Kazakh government announced that the Latin alphabet would replace Cyrillic as the system for the Kazakh language by 2025. In the course of its use, the Latin alphabet was adapted for use in new languages, sometimes representing phonemes not found in languages that were written with the Roman characters. These new forms are given a place in the alphabet by defining an alphabetical order or collation sequence, a digraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters in sequence. Examples are ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨rh⟩, ⟨sh⟩ in English, a trigraph is made up of three letters, like the German ⟨sch⟩, the Breton ⟨c’h⟩ or the Milanese ⟨oeu⟩
Latin script
–
Latin Roman
19.
Arabic script
–
The Arabic script is a writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, dialects of Mandinka, Central Kurdish, Luri, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and others. Until the 16th century, it was used to write some texts in Spanish. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by the number of countries using it, the Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style. In most cases the letters transcribe consonants, or consonants and a few vowels, the script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʼān, the holy book of Islam. It is also the basis for the tradition of Arabic calligraphy, the Arabic script has been adopted for use in a wide variety of languages besides Arabic, including Persian, Malay and Urdu which are not Semitic. Such adaptations may feature altered or new characters to represent phonemes that do not appear in Arabic phonology, the modified version of the Arabic script originally devised for use with Persian is known as the Perso-Arabic script by scholars. In the cases of Bosnian, Kurdish, Kashmiri, and Uyghur writing systems, the Arabic script can therefore be used in both abugida and abjad, although it is often strongly, erroneously connected to the latter. Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, to a certain degree the style and usage tends to follow those of the Maghreb. Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language, the term ʻAjamī, which comes from the Arabic root for foreign, has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages. There is evidence that writing Arabic in this set of letters influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant, Kazakh in China Kurdish in Northern Iraq and Northwest Iran. It is mainly used in Sri Lanka and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu for religious purposes, arwi language is the language of Tamil Nadu Muslims. Malayalam language represented by Arabic script variant is known as Arabi Malayalam, the script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is used in madrasas of the South Indian state of Kerala. It is similar to Chittagonian language in neighboring Bangladesh and sometimes using the Roman script. Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi, in some cases it can be seen in the signboards of shops or market stalls. In addition, some television programming uses Jawi, such as announcements, advertisements, news, social programs, Berber languages have often been written in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet. The use of the Arabic alphabet, as well as the competing Latin, West Africa Zarma language of the Songhay family
Arabic script
–
Basic Arabic alphabet
Arabic script
–
Calligraphy
20.
Swahili Braille
–
The goal of braille uniformity is to unify the braille alphabets of the world as much as possible, so that literacy in one braille alphabet readily transfers to another. A second round of unification was undertaken under the auspices of UNESCO in 1951, Braille arranged his characters in decades, and assigned the 25 letters of the French alphabet to them in order. The characters beyond the first 25 are the source of variation today. In the first decade, only the top four dots are used, Braille is in its origin a numeric code. Louis Braille applied the characters in order to the French alphabet in alphabetical order. As braille spread to other languages, the order was retained and applied to the local script. Therefore, where the alphabetical order differed from that of French, for example, French was based on a 25-letter alphabet without a w. In the United Kingdom, however, French Braille was adopted without such reordering, therefore, any English book published in braille needed to be typeset separately for the United States and the United Kingdom. Similarly, the letters Egyptian Arabic Braille were assigned their forms based on their nearest French equivalents, so that for example Arabic d had the same braille letters as French d. For Algerian Arabic Braille, however, the characters were assigned to the Arabic alphabet according to the Arabic alphabetical order. Thus an Arabic book published in Algeria was utterly unintelligible to blind Egyptians, with the values of its symbols unaltered from those of the original French. Gradually the various reordered and frequency-based alphabets fell out of use elsewhere as well. For example, Greek γ gamma is written ⠛ g, as it is romanized, not ⠉ c, as it is ordered in the alphabet or as it is related historically to the Latin letter c. Occasional assignments are made on grounds, such as Greek ω omega. Correspondences among the basic letters of representative modern braille alphabets include, the additional letters of the extended French braille alphabet, such as ⠯, are not included in the international standard. The French ⠯, for example, corresponds to print ⟨ç⟩, whereas the ⠯ in English and German braille transcribes ⟨&⟩, and the ⠯ in Hungarian and Albanian braille is ⟨q⟩. Such languages include, Bemba, Chewa, Dobuan, Greenlandic, Huli, Indonesian, Luvale, Malagasy, Malaysian, Ndebele, Shona, Swahili, Swazi, Tok Pisin, Tolai, Xhosa, Zulu. In these languages, print digraphs such as ch are written as digraphs in braille too, languages of the Philippines are augmented with the use of the accent point with n, ⠈⠝, for ñ
Swahili Braille
–
An early braille chart, displaying the numeric order of the characters
21.
African Union
–
The African Union is a continental union consisting of all 55 countries on the African continent. It was established on 26 May 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the most important decisions of the AU are made by the Assembly of the African Union, a semi-annual meeting of the heads of state and government of its member states. The AUs secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa, the objectives of the AU are, To achieve greater unity and solidarity between the African countries and Africans. To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States, to accelerate the political and social-economic integration of the continent. To promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent, to encourage international cooperation, taking due account of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To promote peace, security, and stability on the continent, to promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance. To promote and protect human and peoples rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, to establish the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations. To promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies, to promote co-operation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standards of African peoples. To coordinate and harmonize the policies between the existing and future Regional Economic Communities for the attainment of the objectives of the Union. To advance the development of the continent by promoting research in all fields, in particular in science, to work with relevant international partners in the eradication of preventable diseases and the promotion of good health on the continent. The African Union is made up of political and administrative bodies. The highest decision-making organ is the Assembly of the African Union, the Assembly is chaired by Idriss Déby, President of Chad. The AU also has a body, the Pan African Parliament. Its president is Bethel Nnaemeka Amadi, the AU Commission, the secretariat to the political structures, is chaired by Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa. On 15 July 2012, Ms. Dlamini-Zuma won a contested vote to become the first female head of the African Union Commission. The main administrative capital of the African Union is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a new headquarters complex, the AU Conference Center and Office Complex, was inaugurated on 28 January 2012, during the 18th AU summit. The tower is 99.9 meters high to signify the date 9 September 1999, the AU covers the entire continent except for several territories held by Spain, France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. AU troops were deployed in Sudan for peacekeeping during Darfur conflict
African Union
–
The African Union's headquarters complex in
Addis Ababa.
African Union
African Union
–
South Sudanese independence referendum, 2011
African Union
–
Muammar Gaddafi embracing Tanzanian President
Kikwete after assuming the chairmanship.
22.
East African Community
–
John Magufuli, the president of Tanzania, is the EACs chairman. The organisation was founded in 1967, collapsed in 1977, the EAC is an integral part of the African Economic Community. The EAC is a precursor to the establishment of the East African Federation. In 2010, the EAC launched its own common market for goods, labour, in 2013, a protocol was signed outlining their plans for launching a monetary union within 10 years. Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda have cooperated with each other since the early 20th century, Burundi and Rwanda joined the EAC on 6 July 2009. Inter-territorial co-operation between the Kenya Colony, the Uganda Protectorate, and the Tanganyika Territory was formalised in 1948 by the EAHC and this provided a customs union, a common external tariff, currency, and postage. It also dealt with common services in transport and communications, research, the new organisation ran into difficulties because of the lack of joint planning and fiscal policy, separate political policies, and Kenyas dominant economic position. In 1967, the EACSO was superseded by the EAC and this body aimed to strengthen the ties between the members through a common market, a common customs tariff, and a range of public services to achieve balanced economic growth within the region. The three member states lost over sixty years of co-operation and the benefits of economies of scale, the EAC was revived on 30 November 1999, when the treaty for its re-establishment was signed. It came into force on 7 July 2000,23 years after the collapse of the previous community, a customs union was signed in March 2004, which commenced on 1 January 2005. Kenya, the regions largest exporter, continued to pay duties on goods entering the four countries on a declining scale until 2010. A common system of tariffs will apply to imported from third-party countries. On 30 November 2016 it was declared that the aim would be confederation rather than federation. This was contradicted by President Salva Kiir, who announced South Sudan had begun the process one month later. The application was deferred by the EAC in December 2012, however incidents with Ugandan boda-boda operators in South Sudan have created political tension and may delay the process. In December 2012, Tanzania agreed to South Sudan’s bid to join the EAC, in May 2013 the EAC set aside US$82,000 for the admission of South Sudan into the bloc even though admission may not happen until 2016. The process, to start after the EAC Council of Ministers meeting in August 2013, was projected to take at least four years. A team was formed to assess South Sudans bid, however, in April 2014 and those recommendations, however, had not been released to the public
East African Community
–
From left to right: President
Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, President
Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, and President
Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania during the eighth EAC summit in
Arusha, November 2006.
East African Community
–
Flag
East African Community
–
Dar es Salaam, the East African Community's most populous city.
East African Community
–
Dar es Salaam Nairobi
23.
Guthrie classification of Bantu languages
–
The 250 or so Narrow Bantu languages are conventionally divided up into geographic zones first proposed by Malcolm Guthrie. These were assigned letters A–S and divided into decades, individual languages were assigned unit numbers, only Guthries Zone S is considered to be a genealogical group, since then a Zone J has been set up as another possible genealogical group bordering the Great Lakes. The list is first summarized, with links to articles on accepted groups of Bantu languages, Following that is the complete 1948 list, as updated by Guthrie in 1971 and by Maho in 2009. The list below reflects Guthrie as updated by Maho, not included in detail are the Northeast Bantu languages characterized by Dahls Law, which is thought to be a genealogical group, cuts across the Guthrie system, and is covered at Northeast Bantu. Other groups with dedicated articles, such as Southern Bantu are also only summarized here, so that the listing is only a summary. Note that Ethnologue made multiple changes to Guthrie in an attempt to make the more historically accurate. However, the changes are inconsistent, and Ethnologue has not been followed here, thus a code may mean different things depending on whether Guthrie or SIL is being followed. The updates in Maho, on the hand, are designed to be compatible with the original values of the codes. Accepted genealogical groups within the Guthrie zones are boldfaced, S Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, N Gabon A10 Lundu–Balong, Oroko, the other languages apart from A15 Manenguba may be Sawabantu as well. Guthries A60 and part of his A40 have been removed to the Southern Bantoid Mbam languages, Sawabantu may include some of the A10 languages apart from Manenguba, whereas Bube may belong in Mbam. Southern Bantoid Jarawan was assigned to Zone A by Gerhardt and Blench, specifically to A60, according to several scholars, including Blench, there can be no coherent concept of Bantu as long as many of the Zone A and perhaps Zone B languages are included. B10–30 may belong together as Kele–Tsogo, B40 with Kongo–Yaka, there are proposals for three larger clades, Mboshi–Buja covering C10–20 and C37+41, and Bangi–Tetela covering C30 with C50–80, and C40a together with D20–30 in Boan. Most of D40–60 has been moved to Great Lakes Bantu languages, lengola, Bodo, and Nyali may belong together as Lebonya, and Beeke in Boan. F10 Tongwe-Bende F30 Mbugwe–Rangi languages. Isanzu Much of F20 and F30, including the major language Sukuma, have been reclassified as Northeast Bantu, Mbugwe–Rangi, however, form a valid node by themselves. Isanzu is sometimes classified as F30, as a variety of Nilamba, E Tanzania, Comoros G50 Kilombero The languages of Zone G have been reclassified, G60 Bene–Kinga to Northeast Bantu, and the other branches more specifically to Northeast Coast Bantu languages. NW Angola, W Congo H10 Kongo languages H20 Kimbundu languages H30–40 Yaka languages H10 and H40 are sometimes considered Forest Bantu, H10 Kunyi, Suundi, and Vili have been split between B40 and L10. H40 is split between H30 and L10, Kongo–Yaka may form a family, perhaps with B40 Sira. Uganda, Rwanda–Burundi, near lakes Kivu & Victoria J Great Lakes E Angola, k43 Mbukushu K20 Lozi is now classified as Southern Bantu
Guthrie classification of Bantu languages
–
The approximate locations of the sixteen Guthrie Bantu zones, including the addition of a zone J
24.
International Phonetic Alphabet
–
The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators. The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of language, phones, phonemes, intonation. IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a letter, or with a letter plus diacritics. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription, thus, /t/ is less specific than, occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005, there are 107 letters,52 diacritics and these are shown in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA. In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, for example, the sound was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in French. However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, the idea of making the IPA was first suggested by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy. It was developed by Alexander John Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After major revisions and expansions in 1900 and 1932, the IPA remained unchanged until the International Phonetic Association Kiel Convention in 1989, a minor revision took place in 1993 with the addition of four letters for mid central vowels and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives. The alphabet was last revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap, apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces. Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology were created in 1990, the general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound, although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as do hard, finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them, a property known as selectiveness. These are organized into a chart, the chart displayed here is the chart as posted at the website of the IPA. The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet, for this reason, most letters are either Latin or Greek, or modifications thereof. Some letters are neither, for example, the letter denoting the glottal stop, ⟨ʔ⟩, has the form of a question mark
International Phonetic Alphabet
–
The official chart of the IPA as of 2005. Click to enlarge. The proper symbols for upstep and downstep are not available in this font, and have been substituted.
International Phonetic Alphabet
–
X-ray photos show the sounds [i, u, a, ɑ]
25.
Replacement character
–
Specials is a short Unicode block allocated at the very end of the Basic Multilingual Plane, at U+FFF0–FFFF. Of these 16 codepoints, five are assigned as of Unicode 9, U+FFFD � REPLACEMENT CHARACTER used to replace an unknown, unrecognized or unrepresentable character U+FFFE <noncharacter-FFFE> not a character. FFFE and FFFF are not unassigned in the sense. They can be used to guess a texts encoding scheme, since any text containing these is by not a correctly encoded Unicode text. The replacement character � is a found in the Unicode standard at codepoint U+FFFD in the Specials table. It is used to indicate problems when a system is unable to render a stream of data to a correct symbol and it is usually seen when the data is invalid and does not match any character, Consider a text file containing the German word für in the ISO-8859-1 encoding. This file is now opened with an editor that assumes the input is UTF-8. The first and last byte are valid UTF-8 encodings of ASCII, therefore, a text editor could replace this byte with the replacement character symbol to produce a valid string of Unicode code points. The whole string now displays like this, f�r, a poorly implemented text editor might save the replacement in UTF-8 form, the text file data will then look like this, 0x66 0xEF 0xBF 0xBD 0x72, which will be displayed in ISO-8859-1 as f�r. Since the replacement is the same for all errors this makes it impossible to recover the original character, a better design is to preserve the original bytes, including the error, and only convert to the replacement when displaying the text. This will allow the text editor to save the original byte sequence and it has become increasingly common for software to interpret invalid UTF-8 by guessing the bytes are in another byte-based encoding such as ISO-8859-1. This allows correct display of both valid and invalid UTF-8 pasted together, Unicode control characters UTF-8 Mojibake Unicodes Specials table Decodeunicodes entry for the replacement character
Replacement character
–
Replacement character
26.
Unicode
–
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the worlds writing systems. As of June 2016, the most recent version is Unicode 9.0, the standard is maintained by the Unicode Consortium. Unicodes success at unifying character sets has led to its widespread, the standard has been implemented in many recent technologies, including modern operating systems, XML, Java, and the. NET Framework. Unicode can be implemented by different character encodings, the most commonly used encodings are UTF-8, UTF-16 and the now-obsolete UCS-2. UTF-8 uses one byte for any ASCII character, all of which have the same values in both UTF-8 and ASCII encoding, and up to four bytes for other characters. UCS-2 uses a 16-bit code unit for each character but cannot encode every character in the current Unicode standard, UTF-16 extends UCS-2, using one 16-bit unit for the characters that were representable in UCS-2 and two 16-bit units to handle each of the additional characters. Many traditional character encodings share a common problem in that they allow bilingual computer processing, Unicode, in intent, encodes the underlying characters—graphemes and grapheme-like units—rather than the variant glyphs for such characters. In the case of Chinese characters, this leads to controversies over distinguishing the underlying character from its variant glyphs. In text processing, Unicode takes the role of providing a unique code point—a number, in other words, Unicode represents a character in an abstract way and leaves the visual rendering to other software, such as a web browser or word processor. This simple aim becomes complicated, however, because of concessions made by Unicodes designers in the hope of encouraging a more rapid adoption of Unicode, the first 256 code points were made identical to the content of ISO-8859-1 so as to make it trivial to convert existing western text. For other examples, see duplicate characters in Unicode and he explained that he name Unicode is intended to suggest a unique, unified, universal encoding. In this document, entitled Unicode 88, Becker outlined a 16-bit character model, Unicode could be roughly described as wide-body ASCII that has been stretched to 16 bits to encompass the characters of all the worlds living languages. In a properly engineered design,16 bits per character are more than sufficient for this purpose, Unicode aims in the first instance at the characters published in modern text, whose number is undoubtedly far below 214 =16,384. By the end of 1990, most of the work on mapping existing character encoding standards had been completed, the Unicode Consortium was incorporated in California on January 3,1991, and in October 1991, the first volume of the Unicode standard was published. The second volume, covering Han ideographs, was published in June 1992, in 1996, a surrogate character mechanism was implemented in Unicode 2.0, so that Unicode was no longer restricted to 16 bits. The Microsoft TrueType specification version 1.0 from 1992 used the name Apple Unicode instead of Unicode for the Platform ID in the naming table, Unicode defines a codespace of 1,114,112 code points in the range 0hex to 10FFFFhex. Normally a Unicode code point is referred to by writing U+ followed by its hexadecimal number, for code points in the Basic Multilingual Plane, four digits are used, for code points outside the BMP, five or six digits are used, as required. Code points in Planes 1 through 16 are accessed as surrogate pairs in UTF-16, within each plane, characters are allocated within named blocks of related characters
Unicode
–
Logo of the
Unicode Consortium
27.
First language
–
A first language is a language that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. If there are multiple L1, the designation first language is used for the L1 spoken the best or the one that is the basis for sociolinguistic identity. In some countries, the native language or mother tongue refers to the language of ones ethnic group rather than ones first language. Children brought up speaking more than one language can have more than one native language, by contrast, a second language is any language that one speaks other than ones first language. Native speakers are considered to be an authority on their language because of their natural acquisition process regarding the language. That is achieved by interaction with the language and speakers of the language. Native speakers will not necessarily be knowledgeable about every rule of the language. Sometimes, the mother tongue or mother language is used for the language that a person learned as a child at home. Children growing up in homes can, according to this definition, have more than one mother tongue or native language. It is quite possible that the first language learned is no longer a dominant language. According to Ivan Illich, the mother tongue was first used by Catholic monks to designate a particular language they used, instead of Latin. That is, the mother the Church introduced this term. J. R. R. Tolkien, in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, on 17 November 1999, UNESCO designated 21 February as International Mother Language Day. The first language of a child is part of the personal, social and cultural identity, another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking. It is basically responsible for differentiating the linguistic competence of acting and that has implications on the education of non-native speakers. The topic of native speaker also gives way to discussion about what exactly bilingualism is, one definition is that a person is bilingual by being equally proficient in both languages. A person who grows up speaking English and begins learning Spanish for four years is not necessarily bilingual unless he speaks the two languages with equal fluency, one can have two or more native languages, thus being a native bilingual or indeed multilingual. The order in which languages are learned is not necessarily the order of proficiency
First language
–
The monument for the mother tongue in
Nakhchivan,
Azerbaijan
First language
–
International Mother Language Day Monument in Sydney, Australia, unveiling ceremony, 19 February 2006
28.
Swahili people
–
The Swahili people are an ethnic and cultural group inhabiting East Africa. Members mainly reside on the Swahili Coast, in an area encompassing the Zanzibar archipelago, coastal Kenya, the Tanzania seaboard, the name Swahili is derived from the Arabic word Sawahil سواحل, meaning coasts. The Swahili speak the Swahili language, which belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family, the Swahili people originate from Bantu inhabitants of the coast of Southeast Africa, in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. They are mainly united under the tongue of Kiswahili, a Bantu language. On arrival, the Muslims settled along the coast, engaging in trade and it is most commonly believed that the Shirazi Persians intermarried with the local Bantu people, resulting in the Swahili people, most of who converted to Islam. Islam established its presence on the Southeast African coast from around the 9th century, because of the Indian Ocean Trade Islam emerged as a unifying force on the coast and helped to form a unique Swahili identity. The Swahili people follow the Sunni denomination of Islam, the Swahili people in turn introduced the Islamic faith to the hinterland. British colonial officials favored the interpretation of foreign Asian origins to legitimize their own colonial occupation, cambridge University press,2007, p.102. See also Kusimba, C. The Rise and Fall of Swahili States, altamira Press,1999. The Swahili follow a very strict and orthodox form of Islam. For example, Eid-ul-Fitr, the marking the end of Ramadan, is widely celebrated in areas where the Swahili form a majority. Further, large numbers of Swahili undertake the Hajj and Umrah from Tanzania, Kenya, traditional Islamic dress such as the jilbab and thob are also popular among the Swahili. In addition to more orthodox practices, the Swahili also are known for their use of divination, in addition to orthodox beliefs in djinn, many Swahili men wear protective amulets around their necks, which contain verses from the Quran. Divination is practiced through Quranic readings, often the diviner incorporates verses from the Quran into treatments for certain diseases. On occasion, he instructs a patient to soak a piece of paper containing verses of the Quran in water, with this ink infused water, literally containing the word of Allah, the patient will then wash his body or drink it to cure himself of his affliction. It is only prophets and teachers of Islam who are permitted to become medicine men among the Swahili, the Swahili speak the Swahili language as their native tongue, which is a member of the Bantu subgroup of the Niger-Congo family. Its closest relatives include Comorian spoken on the Comoros Islands, with its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Zanzibar, Kenya and Tanzania, a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast. Swahili became the tongue of the class in the Great Lakes region. The Swahili language is what unites and distinguishes the Bantu Swahili speakers from Bantus in the hinterland, for centuries the Swahili depended greatly on trade from the Indian Ocean
Swahili people
–
Sayyida Salme
Swahili people
Swahili people
–
Najib Balala
Swahili people
–
Seif Sharif Hamad
29.
African Great Lakes
–
The African Great Lakes are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in the world by area, and Lake Tanganyika, collectively, they contain 31,000 km3 of water, which is more than either Lake Baikal or the North American Great Lakes. This total constitutes about 25% of the planets unfrozen surface fresh water, the large rift lakes of Africa are the ancient home of great biodiversity, 10% of the worlds fish species live there. Countries in the African Great Lakes region include Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, a conference will be held on the lakes region in 2017 in Uganda. The African Great Lakes are divided among three different drainage/catchments river basins, another number also have Endorheic basin systems, such as Lake Turkana. Lake Kyoga is part of the Great Lakes system, however, it is not itself considered a Great Lake, based on size alone. Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu both empty into the Congo River system, while Lake Malawi is drained by the Shire River into the Zambezi, the African Great Lake region consists of countries that surround the African Great Lakes. It comprises Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, the Bantu Swahili language is the most commonly spoken language in the African Great Lakes region. It also serves as a national or official language of four nations in the region, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Due to the population density of an estimated 107 million people, and the agricultural surplus in the region. The most powerful of these monarchies were Buganda, Bunyoro, Rwanda, unusual for sub-Saharan Africa, the traditional borders were largely maintained by the colonial powers. Being the long sought source of the Nile, the region had long been of interest to Europeans. The first Europeans to arrive in the region in any numbers were missionaries who had limited success in converting the locals, the increased contact with the rest of the world led to a series of devastating epidemics affecting both humans and livestock. While seen as a region with great potential after independence, the region has in recent decades been marred by war and conflict. According to the UNHCR, Tanzania hosted the most Congolese refugees of the region, the worst affected areas have been left in great poverty. The highlands are relatively cool, with temperatures of 17–19˚C. Major drainage basins include those of the Congo-Zaire, Nile, and Zambezi rivers, which drain into the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, forests are dominant in the lowlands of the Congo-Zaire Basin, while grasslands and savannas are most common in the southern and eastern highlands. Temperatures in the average about 95 °F
African Great Lakes
–
Satellite view of the African Great Lakes region and its coastline.
30.
National language
–
A national language is a that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with people and the territory they occupy. There is little consistency in the use of this term, one or more languages spoken as first languages in the territory of a country may be referred to informally or designated in legislation as national languages of the country. National and/or official languages are mentioned in over 150 world constitutions, the last is usually given the title of official language. Standard languages, such as Standard German, Standard French, and Standard Spanish, may serve as national, regional, National language and official language are best understood as two concepts or legal categories with ranges of meaning that may coincide, or may be intentionally separate. Stateless nations are not in the position to legislate an official language, some languages may be recognized popularly as national languages, while others may enjoy official recognition in use and/or promotion. Albanian is the language in Albania and Kosovo and a regional national language for parts of Macedonia. Arabic is the language in Algeria. Berber is also an official language, French has no official status but is widely used in education, business and the media. Andorras national language is Catalan, moreover Catalan is a language in several territories in Spain. Azerbaijan Azerbaijani language is the language in Azerbaijan. Australia has no language, but is largely monolingual with English being the de facto national language. A considerable proportion of first and second generation migrants are bilingual, according to Ethnologue, 81% of people spoke English at home, including L2 speakers. Other languages spoken at home included Chinese 2. 9%, Italian 1. 2%, Arabic 1. 1%, Greek 1%, Vietnamese 0. 9%, there were almost 400 languages spoken by Indigenous Australians prior to the arrival of Europeans. Only about 70 of these languages have survived and all but 30 of these are now endangered, bengali is the sole official language of Bangladesh. Bulgarian is the language in Bulgaria. Canadas official languages since the Official Languages Act of 1969 are English, Quebec nationalists consider Quebec French the national language of the Quebec nation. As well, two of Canadas northern territories legislate a variety of Indigenous languages, as these official languages are legislated at a territorial level, they can be construed as national languages. Notably the Cree language is spoken from Alberta to Labrador, Anishinaabemowin is spoken across central Canada, there are many languages spoken across China, with most people speaking one of several varieties of Chinese
National language
–
The logo of the
Swiss Federal administration, in the
four national languages of Switzerland.
31.
Arabic language
–
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, 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
Arabic language
–
The Galland Manuscript of
One Thousand and One Nights, 14th century
Arabic language
–
al-ʿArabiyyah in written Arabic (
Naskh script)
Arabic language
–
Bilingual traffic sign in
Qatar.
Arabic language
–
Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works.
32.
Swahili Coast
–
The Swahili Coast refers to a coastal area in Southeast Africa inhabited by the Swahili people. It mainly consists of littoral Kenya, Tanzania and northern Mozambique, the term may also include some of the Indian Ocean islands, such as Zanzibar, Pate and Comoros, which lie off the Swahili Coast. The Swahili Coast has a culture, demography, religion and geography. Historical documents including the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and works by Ibn Battuta describe the society, culture, the rise of the Swahili Coast city-states can be largely attributed to the regions extensive participation in a trade network that spanned the Indian Ocean. Evidence for Indian Ocean trade includes the presence of pot sherds on coastal sites that can be traced back to China. A product of the environment of the Swahili Coast was the development of the Swahili language. Sea of Zanj Swahili culture Swahili architecture Kilwa Sultanate
Swahili Coast
–
The Swahili Coast
33.
Askari Monument
–
The Askari Monument in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, is a memorial to the askari soldiers who fought in the British Carrier Corps in World War I. It is located at the center of roundabout between Samora Avenue and Maktaba Street, a place that also marks the exact center of downtown Dar. The main feature of the monument is The Askari, a statue of a soldier. It was realized in the United Kingdom by British sculptor James Alexander Stevenson, Stevenson signed the statue with pseudonym Myrander. Before being sent to Dar es Salaam, the statue was exhibited for a while at the Royal Academy, the soldier has a rifle with a bayonet pointed towards the Dar es Salaam harbour. The statue stands on a pedestal, when the British entered Dar es Salaam in 1916, they removed this statue along with those of Karl Peters and Otto von Bismarck
Askari Monument
–
Askari Monument
Askari Monument
–
Inscription
Askari Monument
–
memorial plaque - fighting African soldiers
34.
Kilwa Kisiwani
–
Kilwa Kisiwani is a community on an island off the southern coast of present-day Tanzania in eastern Africa. Historically, it was the center of the Kilwa Sultanate, a medieval sultanate whose authority at its height in the 13th-15th centuries AD stretched the length of the Swahili Coast. Kilwa Kisiwani has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site along with the nearby stonetown Songo Mnara, Kilwa Kisiwani is an archaeological city-state site located along the Swahili Coast on the Kilwa archipelago. It was occupied from at least the 8th century AD and became one of the most powerful settlements along the coast, the seasonal wind reversals would affect trade circulations. Many of the Swahili settlements showed complex layouts that reflected social relations between groups, however at Kilwa, there are many questions left unanswered about the town layout. The cemeteries were located on the edge of the town, which was common for the region, an important city for trade, around the 13th century there were increased fortifications and a greater flow of goods. For these to take place, there would need to be a form of political administration overseeing the city, much of the trade networks were with the Arabian peninsula. Kilwa Kisiwani reached its highest point in wealth and commerce between 13th and 15th centuries AD, evidence of growth in wealth can be seen with the appearance of stone buildings around the 13th century AD, before which all of the buildings were wattle-and-daub. The socio-economic status of the individuals residing there could be seen in the type of structure they were living in. Among Kilwas exports were spices, tortoise shell, coconut oil, ivory, at around this time, Kilwa had seized control over the trade of gold at Sofala. The wealthy also possessed more commercial goods than the individuals who were of lower class did, luxury cloths and foreign ceramics were among a few of the items they would have owned, though some items, such as luxury cloths, do not preserve in the archaeological record. For approximately 500 years, Kilwa was minting coins and this lasted from about A. D 1100-1600 and the coins have been found across the region, including Great Zimbabwe. Marine resources were abundant and utilized for food, food sources would also come from the surrounding land. But because of the impact the sea, with all of the resources and trade opportunities, had on Kilwa. The soil at Kilwa that was found over the limestone was of poor quality, however, the soil in the Kilwa region would have been suitable for growing cotton, which could be used in sail manufacture. 12th century spindle whorls have been found, indicating that cotton was used and processed in this area, at first, most of the focus was placed on the archaeology of Kilwas ports and harbors, however, more and more emphasis is being placed on Kilwas hinterlands. Ceramic artifacts are plentiful at the site and can be divided into two groups, regional and coastal, all of the ceramics with regional distribution were locally produced, but the area of distribution is limited. These unglazed ceramics were referred to as Kitchen Wares, though their uses were not necessarily just as cooking vessels and it is important to note that all of the varieties of locally produced pottery found in the region were also uncovered at the site of Kilwa itself
Kilwa Kisiwani
–
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Kilwa Kisiwani
–
A 1572 depiction of the city of Kilwa from
Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's atlas Civitates orbis terrarum.
Kilwa Kisiwani
–
The fort on the banks of Kilwa Kisiwani.
35.
Missionary
–
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to proselytize and/or perform ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development. The word mission originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem, meaning act of sending or mittere, meaning to send. The word was used in light of its usage, in the Latin translation of the Bible. The term is most commonly used for Christian missions, but can be used for any creed or ideology, a Christian missionary can be defined as one who is to witness across cultures. The Lausanne Congress of 1974, defined the term, related to Christian mission as, Missionaries can be found in many countries around the world. Jesus instructed the apostles to make disciples of all nations and this verse is referred to by Christian missionaries as the Great Commission and inspires missionary work. The New Testament-era missionary outreach of the Christian church from the time of St Paul expanded throughout the Roman Empire and beyond to Persia, in 596, Pope Gregory the Great sent the Gregorian Mission into England. In their turn, Christians from Ireland and from Britain became prominent in converting the inhabitants of central Europe, about the same time, missionaries such as Francis Xavier as well as other Jesuits, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Dominicans started moving into Asia and the Far East. The Portuguese sent missions into Africa and these are some of the most well-known missions in history. While some missions accompanied imperialism and oppression, others were relatively peaceful, contemporary Christian missionaries argue that working for justice forms a constitutive part of preaching the Gospel, and observe the principles of inculturation in their missionary work. Over time, the Vatican gradually established a church structure in the mission areas, often starting with special jurisdictions known as apostolic prefectures. The two 9th-century saints Cyril and Methodius had extensive success in central Europe. The Byzantines expanded their work in Ukraine after a mass baptism in Kiev in 988. The Serbian Orthodox Church had its origins in the conversion by Byzantine missionaries of the Serb tribes when they arrived in the Balkans in the 7th century, Orthodox missionaries also worked successfully among the Estonians from the 10th to the 12th centuries, founding the Estonian Orthodox Church. The Russian St. Nicholas of Japan took Eastern Orthodoxy to Japan in the 19th century, the Russian Orthodox Church also sent missionaries to Alaska beginning in the 18th century, including Saint Herman of Alaska, to minister to the Native Americans. Quaker publishers of truth visited Boston and other mid-17th century colonies, the Danish government began the first organized Protestant mission work through its College of Missions, established in 1714. This funded and directed Lutheran missionaries such as Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg in Tranquebar, India and he also got to know a slave from the Danish colony in the West Indies. Within thirty years, Moravian missionaries had become active on every continent, and they are famous for their selfless work, living as slaves among the slaves and together with the Native Americans, the Delaware and Cherokee Indian tribes
Missionary
–
Village of Christianized Tapuyos Indians,
Brazil c. 1820
Missionary
–
English missionary
John Williams, active in the
South Pacific
Missionary
–
Jesuits who were martyred by the
Araucanian Indians in Elicura in 1612
Missionary
–
The first recorded baptism in
Alta California.
36.
Zanzibar
–
Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania in East Africa. It is composed of the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 kilometres off the coast of the mainland, the capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre is Stone Town, which is a World Heritage Site, the name Zanzibar is apparently derived from the Persian zang-bâr signifying black coast. Zanzibars main industries are spices, raffia, and tourism, in particular, the islands produce cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and black pepper. For this reason, the islands, together with Tanzanias Mafia Island, are called the Spice Islands. Zanzibar is the home of the endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey, the Zanzibar servaline genet, the word Zanzibar came from Arabic Zanjibār, which is in turn from Persian Zang-bār, a compound of Zang + bār. The presence of microlithic tools suggest that it has been home to humans for at least 20,000 years, a Greco-Roman text between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, mentioned the island of Menuthias, which is probably Unguja. Little is known about the history of Zanzibar between the time of the Periplus and the death of Muhammad in 632 CE, from that point forward, wars in Asia and increasing trade motivated Persians, Arabs, and Indians to visit or migrate to Zanzibar. Persian traders used Zanzibar as a base for voyages between the Middle East, India, and Africa and they established garrisons on the islands and built the first Zoroastrian fire temples and mosques in the Southern Hemisphere. The impact of these traders and immigrants on the Swahili culture is uncertain, during the Middle Ages, Zanzibar and other settlements on the Swahili Coast were advanced. The littoral contained a number of autonomous trade cities and these towns grew in wealth as the Bantu Swahili people served as intermediaries and facilitators to local, Arab, Persian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Indian, and Chinese merchants. This interaction contributed in part to the evolution of the Swahili culture, although a Bantu language, Swahili as a consequence today includes some elements that were borrowed from other civilizations, particularly Arabic loanwords. With the wealth that they had acquired through trade, some of the Arab traders also became rulers of the coastal cities, vasco da Gamas visit in 1498 marked the beginning of European influence. In 1503 or 1504, Zanzibar became part of the Portuguese Empire when Captain Ruy Lourenço Ravasco Marques landed and demanded and received tribute from the sultan in exchange for peace, Zanzibar remained a possession of Portugal for almost two centuries. It initially became part of the Portuguese province of Arabia and Ethiopia and was administered by a governor general, around 1571, Zanzibar became part of the western division of the Portuguese empire and was administered from Mozambique. It appears, however, that the Portuguese did not closely administer Zanzibar, the first English ship to visit Unguja, the Edward Bonaventure in 1591, found that there was no Portuguese fort or garrison. The extent of their occupation was a depot where produce was purchased and collected for shipment to Mozambique. In other respects, the affairs of the island were managed by the local king and this hands-off approach ended when Portugal established a fort on Pemba around 1635 in response to the Sultan of Mombasas slaughter of Portuguese residents several years earlier
Zanzibar
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The old castle in Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar
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The Harem and Tower Harbour of Zanzibar (p.234), London Missionary Society
Zanzibar
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A
Zanj slave gang in Zanzibar (1889)
37.
Red Sea
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The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait, to the north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez. The Red Sea is a Global 200 ecoregion, the sea is underlain by the Red Sea Rift which is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Red Sea has an area of roughly 438,000 km2, is about 2250 km long and. It has a depth of 2211 m in the central median trench. However, there are also extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life, the sea is the habitat of over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. It is the worlds northernmost tropical sea, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Red Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limits of the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba, a line joining Husn Murad and Ras Siyyan. Red Sea is a translation of the Greek Erythra Thalassa, Latin Mare Rubrum, Arabic, البحر الأحمر. Al-Baḥr Al-Aḥmar, Somali Badda Cas and Tigrinya Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī, the name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the waters surface. A theory favored by modern scholars is that the name red is referring to the direction south. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to the cardinal directions, herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably. Historically, it was known to western geographers as Mare Mecca. Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia. C, in that version, the Yam Suph is translated as Erythra Thalassa. The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms — the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek Erythra thalassa in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the part of the Indian Ocean. The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, one such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC. Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea, historically, scholars argued whether these trips were possible
Red Sea
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Red Sea
Red Sea
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Tihama on the Red Sea near Khaukha,
Yemen
Red Sea
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Annotated view of the Nile and Red Sea, with a dust storm
Red Sea
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Dust storm over the Red Sea
38.
Persian Gulf
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The Persian Gulf is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Hormuz, the Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline. The Persian Gulf was a battlefield of the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War and it is the namesake of the 1991 Gulf War, the largely air- and land-based conflict that followed Iraqs invasion of Kuwait. The gulf has many fishing grounds, extensive coral reefs, and abundant pearl oysters, the body of water is historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf. Some Arab governments refer to it as the Arabian Gulf or The Gulf, the name Gulf of Iran is used by the International Hydrographic Organization. The Persian Gulf is geologically young, having been formed around 15,000 years ago. Its length is 989 kilometres, with Iran covering most of the northern coast, the Persian Gulf is about 56 km wide at its narrowest, in the Strait of Hormuz. The waters are very shallow, with a maximum depth of 90 metres. Various small islands lie within the Persian Gulf, some of which are the subject of territorial disputes between the states of the region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the Persian Gulfs southern limit as The Northwestern limit of Gulf of Oman and this limit is defined as A line joining Ràs Limah on the coast of Arabia and Ràs al Kuh on the coast of Iran. The Persian Gulf and its areas are the worlds largest single source of crude oil. Safaniya Oil Field, the worlds largest offshore oilfield, is located in the Persian Gulf, large gas finds have also been made, with Qatar and Iran sharing a giant field across the territorial median line. Using this gas, Qatar has built up a substantial liquefied natural gas, the oil-rich countries that have a coastline on the Persian Gulf are referred to as the Persian Gulf States. In 550 BC, the Achaemenid Empire established the first ancient empire in Persis, consequently, in the Greek sources, the body of water that bordered this province came to be known as the Persian Gulf. In the travel account of Pythagoras, several chapters are related to description of his travels accompanied by the Achaemenid king Darius the Great, to Susa and Persepolis, and the area is described. This water channel separates the Iran Plateau from the Arabia Plate, has enjoyed an Iranian Identity since at least 2200 years ago. Before being given its present name, the Persian Gulf was called many different names, the classical Greek writers, like Herodotus, called it the Red Sea. In Babylonian texts, it was known as the sea above Akkad, the name of the gulf, historically and internationally known as the Persian Gulf after the land of Persia, has been disputed by some Arab countries since the 1960s
Persian Gulf
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Persian Gulf from space
Persian Gulf
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A historical map of the Persian Gulf in
a Dubai museum with the word Persian removed
Persian Gulf
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Picture depicting extent of early civilizations around the Persian Gulf, including Lackhmids, and Sassanids.
Persian Gulf
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Picture depicting the Achaemenid Persian empire in relation to the Persian Gulf.
39.
Phoneme
–
A phoneme is one of the units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a particular language. The difference in meaning between the English words kill and kiss is a result of the exchange of the phoneme /l/ for the phoneme /s/, two words that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair. In linguistics, phonemes are written between slashes like this, /p/, whereas when it is desired to show the exact pronunciation of any sound, linguists use square brackets. Within linguistics there are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are, however, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set of speech sounds which are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given language. For example, in English, the k sounds in the kit and skill are not identical. Different speech sounds that are realizations of the same phoneme are known as allophones, phonemes are conventionally placed between slashes in transcription, whereas speech sounds are placed between square brackets. Thus /pʊʃ/ represents a sequence of three phonemes /p/, /ʊ/, /ʃ/, while represents the sequence of sounds. The symbols used for particular phonemes are often taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet, however, descriptions of particular languages may use different conventional symbols to represent the phonemes of those languages. A phoneme is a sound or a group of different sounds perceived to have the function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example is the English phoneme /k/, which occurs in such as cat, kit, scat. Although most native speakers do not notice this, in most English dialects the c/k sounds in words are not identical, in kit the sound is aspirated. The words therefore contain different speech sounds, or phones, transcribed for the aspirated form, the above shows that in English, and are allophones of a single phoneme /k/. For example, in Icelandic, is the first sound of kátur meaning cheerful, Icelandic therefore has two separate phonemes /kʰ/ and /k/. A pair of words like kátur and gátur that differ only in one phone is called a pair for the two alternative phones in question. The existence of pairs is a common test to decide whether two phones represent different phonemes or are allophones of the same phoneme. In other languages, though, including Korean, even though both sounds and occur, no minimal pair exists. The lack of minimal pairs distinguishing and in Korean provides evidence that in this language they are allophones of a single phoneme /t/, the word /tata/ is pronounced, for example. Signed languages, such as American Sign Language also have minimal pairs, Sign language minimal pairs refer to one of the signs parameters, handshape, movement, location, palm orientation, and non-manual signal/marker
Phoneme
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A simplified procedure for determining whether two sounds represent the same or different phonemes
40.
Labial consonant
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Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lip against the upper teeth, both of which are present in English. A third labial articulation is dentolabials, articulated with the lip against the lower teeth. Generally precluded are linguolabials, in which the tip of the contacts the posterior side of the upper lip, making them coronals, though sometimes. The most common distribution between bilabials and labiodentals is the English one, in which the stops, and, are bilabial and the fricatives, bilabial fricatives and the bilabial approximant do not exist in English, but they occur in many languages. For example, the Spanish consonant written b or v is pronounced, lip rounding, or labialization, is a common approximant-like co-articulatory feature. English /w/ is a labialized velar approximant, which is far more common than the purely labial approximant. In the languages of the Caucasus, labialized dorsals like /kʷ/ and /qʷ/ are very common, very few languages, however, make a distinction purely between bilabials and labiodentals, making labial usually a sufficient specification of a languages phonemes. One exception is Ewe, which has both kinds of fricatives, but the labiodentals are produced with greater articulatory force, while most languages make use of purely labial phonemes, a few generally lack them. Examples are Tlingit, Eyak, Wichita, and the Iroquoian languages except Cherokee, all of these languages have seen labials introduced under the influence of English. Many of these languages are transcribed with /w/ and with labialized consonants, however, it is not always clear to what extent the lips are involved in such sounds. In the Iroquoian languages, for example, /w/ involved little apparent rounding of the lips, see the Tillamook language for an example of a language with rounded consonants and vowels that do not have any actual labialization. Labialization List of phonetics topics Ladefoged, Peter, Maddieson, Ian, the Sounds of the Worlds Languages. McDorman, Richard E. Labial Instability in Sound Change, Explanations for the Loss of /p/
Labial consonant
41.
Dental consonant
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A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as /t/, /d/, /n/, and /l/ in some languages. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic for dental consonant is U+032A ◌̪ COMBINING BRIDGE BELOW, sanskrit, Hindi and all other Indic languages have an entire set of dental stops that occur phonemically as voiced and voiceless, and with or without aspiration. The nasal /n/ also exists in languages, but is quite alveolar. To the Indian speaker, the alveolar /t/ and /d/ of English sound more like the corresponding retroflex consonants of his own language than like the dentals. Spanish /t/ and /d/ are laminal denti-alveolar, whereas /l/ and /n/ are prototypically alveolar, likewise, Italian /t/, /d/, /t͡s/, /d͡z/ are denti-alveolar and /l/ and /n/ become denti-alveolar before a following dental consonant. In the case of French, the rear-most contact is alveolar or sometimes slightly pre-alveolar, the Sounds of the Worlds Languages
Dental consonant
42.
Alveolar consonant
–
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with the tip of the tongue, as in English, or with the flat of the tongue just above the tip, as in French and Spanish. The laminal alveolar articulation is often called dental, because the tip of the tongue can be seen near to or touching the teeth. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have symbols for the alveolar consonants. Rather, the symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized like English palato-alveolar sh. To disambiguate, the bridge may be used for a dental consonant, note that differs from dental in that the former is a sibilant and the latter is not. Differs from postalveolar in being unpalatalized, the bare letters, etc. cannot be assumed to specifically represent alveolars. If it is necessary to specify a consonant as alveolar, a diacritic from the Extended IPA may be used, the letters ⟨s, t, n, l⟩ are frequently called alveolar, and the language examples below are all alveolar sounds. Alveolar consonants are transcribed in the IPA as follows, The alveolar or dental consonants and are, along with, nonetheless, there are a few languages that lack them. A few languages on Bougainville Island and around Puget Sound, such as Makah, lack nasals and therefore, colloquial Samoan, however, lacks both and, but it has a lateral alveolar approximant /l/. In Standard Hawaiian, is an allophone of /k/, but /l/, in labioalveolars, the lower lip contacts the alveolar ridge. Such sounds are typically the result of a severe overbite, the Sounds of the Worlds Languages
Alveolar consonant
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Places of articulation (passive & active): 1. Exo-labial, 2. Endo-labial, 3. Dental, 4. Alveolar, 5. Post-alveolar, 6. Pre-palatal, 7. Palatal, 8. Velar, 9. Uvular, 10. Pharyngeal, 11. Glottal, 12. Epiglottal, 13. Radical, 14. Postero-dorsal, 15. Antero-dorsal, 16. Laminal, 17. Apical, 18. Sub-apical
43.
Postalveolar consonant
–
Examples of postalveolar consonants are the English palato-alveolar consonants, as in the words shill, chill, vision, and Jill, respectively. There are a number of types of postalveolar sounds, especially among the sibilants. The three primary types are palato-alveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex, the palato-alveolar and alveolo-palatal subtypes are commonly counted as palatals in phonology since they rarely contrast with true palatal consonants. The sibilant postalveolars are sometimes called hush consonants because they include the sound of English Shhh, for example, the alveolar fricative and the three postalveolar fricatives differ noticeably both in pitch and sharpness, the order corresponds to progressively lower-pitched and duller sounds. As a result, it is necessary to specify many additional subtypes, the main distinction is the shape of the tongue, which corresponds to differing degrees of palatalization. From least to most palatalized, these are retroflex, palato-alveolar, the increasing palatalization corresponds to progressively higher-pitched and sharper-sounding consonants. The alveolo-palatal consonant sounds like a strongly palatalized version of, somewhat like nourish you, palato-alveolar sounds are normally described as having a convex tongue. The front, central part of the tongue is somewhat raised compared to the tip, back and sides, for retroflex sounds, the tongue shape is either concave, or flat. For alveolo-palatal sounds, the front half of the tongue is flat and raised so that it parallels the upper surface of the mouth. Behind that is a sudden convex bend, the following table shows the three types of postalveolar sibilant fricatives defined in the IPA, A second variable is whether the contact occurs with the very tip of the tongue. With the surface just above the tip, the blade of the tongue, also, the apical-laminal distinction among palato-alveolar sounds makes little perceptible difference, both articulations, in fact, occur among English-speakers. As a result, the points of tongue contact are significant largely for retroflex sounds. Retroflex sounds can occur outside of the postalveolar region, ranging from as far back as the hard palate to as far forward as the alveolar region behind the teeth. Subapical retroflex sounds are often palatal, such sounds occur particularly in the Dravidian languages, there is an additional distinction that can be made among tongue-down laminal sounds, depending on where exactly behind the lower teeth the tongue tip is placed. A bit behind the teeth is a hollow area in the lower surface of the mouth. When the tongue tip rests in this area, there is an empty space below the tongue. When the tip of the tongue rests against the teeth, there is no sublingual cavity. However, the sibilants in Northwest Caucasian languages such as Ubykh have the tongue tip resting directly against the lower teeth rather than in the hollowed area
Postalveolar consonant
44.
Palatal consonant
–
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate. Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex, the most common type of palatal consonant is the extremely common approximant, which ranks as among the ten most common sounds in the worlds languages. The nasal is also common, occurring in around 35 percent of the languages, in most of which its equivalent obstruent is not the stop. Consonants with other primary articulations may be palatalized, that is, for example, English has such a palatal component, although its primary articulation involves the tip of the tongue and the upper gum. In phonology, alveolo-palatal, palatoalveolar and palatovelar consonants are commonly grouped as palatals, sometimes palatalized alveolars or dentals can be analyzed in this manner as well. Palatal consonants can be distinguished from palatalized consonants and consonant clusters of a consonant, palatal and palatalized consonants are both single phonemes, whereas a sequence of a consonant and is logically two phonemes. Irish distinguishes the palatal nasal /ɲ/ from the alveolar nasal /nʲ/. In fact, some conservative Irish dialects have two palatalized alveolar nasals, distinguished as fortis vs. lenis. Also, languages that have sequences of consonants and /j/, but no separate palatal or palatalized consonants and this is due to the principle of least effort and is an example of the general phenomenon of coarticulation. For a table of examples of palatal /ɲ ʎ/ in the Romance languages, palatal consonants are written this way in the International Phonetic Alphabet, Palatalization Palatalization Place of articulation List of phonetics topics Ladefoged, Peter, Maddieson, Ian. The Sounds of the Worlds Languages
Palatal consonant
45.
Velar consonant
–
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth. They often become automatically fronted, that is partly or completely palatal before a front vowel, and retracted. Palatalised velars are sometimes referred to as palatovelars, many languages also have labialized velars, such as, in which the articulation is accompanied by rounding of the lips. There are also labial-velar consonants, which are articulated at the velum and at the lips. This distinction disappears with the approximant since labialization involves adding of a labial approximant articulation to a sound, a velar trill or tap is not possible, see the shaded boxes on the table of pulmonic consonants. The velar consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are, The velar consonant is the most common consonant in human languages, the only languages recorded to lack velars may be Xavante, Tahitian, Wutung, Vanimo, Nori, and Waimiri-Atroarí. An areal feature of the Pacific Northwest coast is that historical *k became palatalized in many languages, likewise, historical *k’ has become and historical *x has become, there was no *g or *ŋ. In the Northwest Caucasian languages, historical * has also become palatalized, becoming /kʲ/ in Ubykh, in both regions the languages retain a labiovelar series as well as uvular consonants. In the languages of those families that retain plain velars, both the plain and labialized velars are pre-velar, perhaps to make them distinct from the uvulars which may be post-velar. Prevelar consonants are susceptible to palatalization, a similar system, contrasting *kʲ with *kʷ and leaving *k marginal at best, is reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European. Apart from the stop, no other velar consonant is particularly common, even the. Of course, there can be no phoneme /ɡ/ in a language that lacks voiced stops, like Mandarin Chinese, of the languages surveyed in the World Atlas of Language Structures, about 10% of languages that otherwise have /p b t d k/ are missing /ɡ/. Pirahã has both a and a phonetically, however, the does not behave as other consonants, and the argument has been made that it is phonemically /hi/, leaving Pirahã with only /ɡ/ as an underlyingly velar consonant. Hawaiian does not distinguish from, ⟨k⟩ tends toward at the beginning of utterances, before, since Hawaiian has no, and ⟨w⟩ varies between and, it is not clearly meaningful to say that Hawaiian has phonemic velar consonants. Several Khoisan languages have limited numbers or distributions of pulmonic velar consonants, khoekhoe, for example, does not allow velars in medial or final position, but in Juǀhoan velars are rare even in initial position. Normal velar consonants are dorso-velar, The dorsum of the rises to contact the velum of the roof of the mouth. In disordered speech there are also velo-dorsal stops, with the articulation, The velum lowers to contact the tongue. In the extensions to the IPA for disordered speech, these are transcribed by reversing the IPA letter for a velar consonant, velarization Place of articulation List of phonetics topics Ladefoged, Peter, Maddieson, Ian
Velar consonant
46.
Glottal consonant
–
Glottal consonants are consonants using the glottis as their primary articulation. However, glottal consonants behave as consonants in many languages. For example, in Literary Arabic, most words are formed from a root C-C-C consisting of three consonants, which are inserted into templates such as /CaːCiC/ or /maCCuːC/. The glottal consonants /h/ and /ʔ/ can occupy any of the three root consonant slots, just like normal consonants such as /k/ or /n/, glottal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet, In many languages, the fricatives are not true fricatives. This is a usage of the word. They instead represent transitional states of the glottis without a place of articulation. Is a breathy-voiced transition, and could be transcribed as, the glottal stop occurs in many languages. Often all vocalic onsets are preceded by a stop, for example in German. The Hawaiian language writes the glottal stop as the ‘okina ‘, because the glottis is necessarily closed for the glottal stop, it cannot be voiced. So-called voiced glottal stops are not full stops, but rather creaky voiced glottal approximants that may be transcribed and they occur as the intervocalic allophone of glottal stop in many languages. Gimi contrasts /ʔ/ and /ʔ̞/, corresponding to /k/ and /ɡ/ in related languages, glottalic consonant Glottalization Place of articulation Index of phonetics articles Guttural Ladefoged, Peter, Maddieson, Ian. The Sounds of the Worlds Languages
Glottal consonant
47.
Bilabial nasal
–
The bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨m⟩, the bilabial nasal occurs in English, and it is the sound represented by m in map and rum. It occurs nearly universally, and few languages are known to lack this sound, features of the bilabial nasal, Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose. Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips and its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose. Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds
Bilabial nasal
48.
Palatal nasal
–
The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɲ⟩, the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J. Palatal nasals are more common than the palatal stops. The alveolo-palatal nasal is a type of sound, used in some oral languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, if more precision is desired, it may be transcribed ⟨n̠ʲ⟩ or ⟨ɲ̟⟩, these are essentially equivalent, since the contact includes both the blade and body of the tongue. There is a non-IPA letter ⟨ȵ⟩, used especially in Sinological circles, the alveolo-palatal nasal is commonly described as palatal, it is often unclear whether a language has a true palatal or not. Many languages claimed to have a nasal, such as Portuguese. This is likely true of several of the languages listed here, some dialects of Irish as well as some non-standard dialects of Malayalam are reported to contrast alveolo-palatal and palatal nasals. There is also a post-palatal nasal in some languages, features of the voiced palatal nasal, Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose. Its place of articulation is palatal, which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised to the hard palate and its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose. Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds. Nasal palatal approximant Index of phonetics articles Ɲ
Palatal nasal
49.
Velar nasal
–
The velar nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ng in English sing, the symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ŋ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N. Both the IPA symbol and the sound are commonly called eng or engma, while almost all languages have /m/ and /n/, /ŋ/ is rarer. Only half of the 469 languages surveyed in Anderson had a nasal phoneme, as a further curiosity. In many languages that do not have the velar nasal as a phoneme, an example of a language that lacks a phonemic or allophonic velar nasal is Russian, in which /n/ is pronounced as laminal denti-alveolar even before velar consonants. It also makes it more difficult to allow air to escape through the nose. Features of the nasal, Its manner of articulation is occlusive. Because the consonant is nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose. Its place of articulation is velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue at the soft palate and its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is a consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose. Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds
Velar nasal
Definitions from Wiktionary
Media from Commons
Textbooks from Wikibooks
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Data from Wikidata
