Arabic script and West Africa

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Difference between Arabic script and West Africa

Arabic script vs. West Africa

The Arabic script is the writing system used for writing Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa, such as Azerbaijani, Pashto, Persian, Kurdish, Lurish, Urdu, Mandinka, and others. West Africa, also called Western Africa and the West of Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa.

Arabic

Arabic (العَرَبِيَّة) or (عَرَبِيّ) or) is a Central Semitic language that first emerged in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living from Mesopotamia in the east to the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, and in the Sinai peninsula. Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. As the modern written language, Modern Standard Arabic 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 (fuṣḥā), which is the official language of 26 states and the liturgical language of Islam. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties, and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-classical era, especially in modern times. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages, mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Valencian and Catalan, owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and 800 years of Arabic culture and language in the Iberian Peninsula, referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus. Sicilian has about 500 Arabic words as result of Sicily being progressively conquered by Arabs from North Africa, from the mid 9th to mid 10th centuries. Many of these words relate to agriculture and related activities (Hull and Ruffino). Balkan languages, including Greek and Bulgarian, have also acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. Some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Turkish, Spanish, Urdu, Kashmiri, Kurdish, Bosnian, Kazakh, Bengali, Hindi, Malay, Maldivian, Indonesian, Pashto, Punjabi, Tagalog, Sindhi, and Hausa, and some languages in parts of Africa. Conversely, Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Greek and Persian in medieval times, and contemporary European languages such as English and French in modern times. Classical Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims and Modern Standard Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by perhaps as many as 422 million speakers (native and non-native) in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography.

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Berbers

Berbers or Amazighs (Berber: Imaziɣen, ⵉⵎⴰⵣⵉⵗⴻⵏ; singular: Amaziɣ, ⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵗ) are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa, primarily inhabiting Algeria, northern Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, northern Niger, Tunisia, Libya, and a part of western Egypt.

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French language

French (le français or la langue française) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family.

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Islam

IslamThere are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or, and whether the a is pronounced, or (when the stress is on the first syllable) (Merriam Webster).

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Maghreb

The Maghreb (al-Maɣréb lit.), also known as the Berber world, Barbary, Berbery, and Northwest Africa, is a major region of North Africa that consists primarily of the countries Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania.

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Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali (République du Mali), is a landlocked country in West Africa, a region geologically identified with the West African Craton.

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Mandinka language

The Mandinka language (Mandi'nka kango), or Mandingo, is a Mandé language spoken by the Mandinka people of the Casamance region of Senegal, the Gambia, and northern Guinea-Bissau.

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Morocco

Morocco (officially known as the Kingdom of Morocco, is a unitary sovereign state located in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is one of the native homelands of the indigenous Berber people. Geographically, Morocco is characterised by a rugged mountainous interior, large tracts of desert and a lengthy coastline along the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Morocco has a population of over 33.8 million and an area of. Its capital is Rabat, and the largest city is Casablanca. Other major cities include Marrakesh, Tangier, Salé, Fes, Meknes and Oujda. A historically prominent regional power, Morocco has a history of independence not shared by its neighbours. Since the foundation of the first Moroccan state by Idris I in 788 AD, the country has been ruled by a series of independent dynasties, reaching its zenith under the Almoravid dynasty and Almohad dynasty, spanning parts of Iberia and northwestern Africa. The Marinid and Saadi dynasties continued the struggle against foreign domination, and Morocco remained the only North African country to avoid Ottoman occupation. The Alaouite dynasty, the current ruling dynasty, seized power in 1631. In 1912, Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates, with an international zone in Tangier, and regained its independence in 1956. Moroccan culture is a blend of Berber, Arab, West African and European influences. Morocco claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara, formerly Spanish Sahara, as its Southern Provinces. After Spain agreed to decolonise the territory to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975, a guerrilla war arose with local forces. Mauritania relinquished its claim in 1979, and the war lasted until a cease-fire in 1991. Morocco currently occupies two thirds of the territory, and peace processes have thus far failed to break the political deadlock. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive and legislative powers, especially over the military, foreign policy and religious affairs. Executive power is exercised by the government, while legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and the Assembly of Councillors. The king can issue decrees called dahirs, which have the force of law. He can also dissolve the parliament after consulting the Prime Minister and the president of the constitutional court. Morocco's predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Berber, with Berber being the native language of Morocco before the Arab conquest in the 600s AD. The Moroccan dialect of Arabic, referred to as Darija, and French are also widely spoken. Morocco is a member of the Arab League, the Union for the Mediterranean and the African Union. It has the fifth largest economy of Africa.

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N'Ko alphabet

N'Ko is both a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949, as a writing system for the Manding languages of West Africa, and the name of the literary language written in that script.

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North Africa

North Africa is a collective term for a group of Mediterranean countries and territories situated in the northern-most region of the African continent.

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Portuguese language

Portuguese (português or, in full, língua portuguesa) is a Western Romance language originating from the regions of Galicia and northern Portugal in the 9th century.

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Sahel

The Sahel is the ecoclimatic and biogeographic zone of transition in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian Savanna to the south.

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Senegal

Senegal (Sénégal), officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country in West Africa.

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Sudan

The Sudan or Sudan (السودان as-Sūdān) also known as North Sudan since South Sudan's independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan (جمهورية السودان Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa.

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Tuareg languages

Tuareg, also known as Tamasheq, Tamajaq or Tamahaq (Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵌⴰⵆ), is a language or family of very closely related Berber languages and dialects.

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Yoruba language

Yoruba (Yor. èdè Yorùbá) is a language spoken in West Africa.

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