![]() So, although the concept is relatively new, came from the outside, and is imprecise, it’s used throughout the region! One interesting note is that the concept of the Middle East has been adopted in most of the languages of the region themselves: in Arabic, the region is referred to as al-sharq al-awsat, in Turkish as orta dogu, in Persian as khavarmiyaheh and in Hebrew as mizrach tichon. ![]() There is no real correct answer to the question, “What is the Middle East?” There are different definitions, which often overlap and often change according to shifting perspectives. Yet the same maps often include Iran, Afghanistan and sometimes even Pakistan – countries with different languages, some shared history and some very different cultural and historical bases. Most current maps leave them out of the Middle East, except for Egypt, despite a long shared history and many cultural similarities with other Arab countries. The Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa, including Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, are not in Asia. For example, we might describe the Middle East geographically as a hot and arid region in western Asia between the Mediterranean in the west and the Indian subcontinent in the east or we might describe it historically as a predominantly Muslim area sharing a common cultural heritage based on Arabic or we might describe it strategically from a geopolitical and economic perspective, with consideration for its large reserves of oil.Įach definition has problems and might lead to a different map of the “Middle East.” For example, Turkey, Israel and Iran are not Arabic-speaking countries, yet most maps would include them in the Middle East. This certainly complicates deciding who could be classified as “Middle Eastern”.ĭepending on how we define those characteristics, the borders of the Middle East can change. The “Middle East” is a term describing a region, or a geographical area sharing certain characteristics as opposed to areas like West Asia or North Africa, which define a relatively clear geographical location by reference to broadly accepted continental borders. Of course, the term itself incorporates a European perspective, since the Middle East is only “east” relative to western Europe had the Chinese had the power to impose their perspective in our maps, the region might have been known as the Midwest! It was originally coined in the early twentieth century to designate the area between the British colony of India and the Near East (the Balkans and western part of the Ottoman Empire). To answer “Who is Middle Eastern?” we must ask ourselves “What is the Middle East?” The Middle East itself is not a fixed term. There are also minorities of Arabs in many other countries, such as Iran, Turkey, France, and the United States. ![]() Also, in many Arab countries, before the founding of the state of Israel, there were active Arabic-speaking Jewish communities in such places as Morocco and Iraq most of these populations moved to Israel after its founding in 1948 but maintain aspects of their Arab ancestry. For example, in both Chad and Iraq, members of non-Arab ethnic groups use Arabic as a lingua franca to communicate. Members of these groups may also speak Arabic, but they might not identify themselves as Arabs. In each of these countries there may be different ethnic groups whose mother tongue is not Arabic. Alternately, Arab typically applies to the 22 member states of the League of Arab States these members include the above with exception of Chad, Eritrea, Israel, and the Western Sahara. There are 26 countries or territories in western Asia and Africa where Arabic is the official or one of the official languages of the state: Algeria, Bahrain, Chad (with French), Comoros (with French and Shikomor), Djibouti (with French), Egypt, Eritrea (with Tigrignan), Iraq (with Kurdish), Israel (with Hebrew), Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (with Somali), Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, and Yemen. While Arabs speak the same language, there is enormous ethnic diversity among the spoken dialects. Arabic is a Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. Arab is an ethno-linguistic category, identifying people who speak the Arabic language as their mother tongue (or, in the case of immigrants, for example, whose parents or grandparents spoke Arabic as their native language).
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