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Maltese People
The Maltese () people are an ethnic group native to Malta who speak Maltese, a Semitic language with a substantial Romance superstratum, and share a common Maltese history and culture characterised by Roman Catholicism, which remains the state religion. Malta, an island country in the Mediterranean Sea, is an archipelago that also includes an island of the same name together with the islands of Gozo () and Comino (); people of Gozo, ''Gozitans'' () are considered a subgroup of the Maltese. History The current Maltese people, characterised by the use of the Maltese language and by Roman Catholicism, are the descendants – through much mixing and hybridisation – of colonists from Sicily and Calabria who repopulated the Maltese islands in the beginning of the second millennium after a two-century lapse of depopulation that followed the Ifriqiyian conquest by the Aghlabids in AD 870. A genetic study by Capelli et al. indicates that Malta was barely in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maltese Language
Maltese (, also or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language derived from Siculo-Arabic, late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance languages, Romance Stratum (linguistics), superstrata. It is the only Semitic languages, Semitic language predominantly written in the Latin script. It is spoken by the Maltese people and is the national language of Malta, and is the only languages of the European Union, official Semitic and Afroasiatic language of the European Union. According to John L. Hayes, it descended from a Maghrebi Arabic, North African dialect of Colloquial Arabic which was introduced to Malta when the Aghlabid dynasty, Aghlabids captured it in 869/870 CE. It is also said to have descended from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent history of religion in Malta#Arrival of Christianity, re-Christianization of the islands, Maltese evolved indepe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archipelago
An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the origin of the term), the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Stockholm Archipelago, the Malay Archipelago (which includes the Indonesian and Philippine Archipelagos), the Lucayan (Bahamian) Archipelago, the Japanese archipelago, and the Hawaiian Archipelago. Etymology The word ''archipelago'' is derived from the Italian ''arcipelago'', used as a proper name for the Aegean Sea, itself perhaps a deformation of the Greek Αιγαίον Πέλαγος. Later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands (since the sea has a large number of islands). The erudite paretymology, deriving the word from Ancient Greek ἄρχι-(''arkhi-'', "chief") and πέλαγος (''pélagos'', "sea"), proposed by Buondelmonti, can still be found. Geograph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Depopulation
Population decline, also known as depopulation, is a reduction in a human population size. Throughout history, Earth's total human population has continued to grow but projections suggest this long-term trend may be coming to an end. From antiquity until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the global population grew very slowly, at about 0.04% per year. After about 1800, the growth rate accelerated to a peak of 2.1% annually during the 1962–1968 period, but since then, due to the worldwide collapse of the total fertility rate, it has slowed to 0.9% as of 2023. The global growth rate in absolute numbers accelerated to a peak of 92.8 million in 1990, but has since slowed to 70.4 million in 2023. Long-term projections indicate that the growth rate of the human population of the planet will continue to slow and that before the end of the 21st century, it will reach zero. Examples of this emerging trend are Japan, whose population is currently (2023) declining at the ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros
Louis Ducros aka Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros or Du Cros, as appears on his birth certificate (Moudon, 21 July 1748 – Lausanne, 18 February 1810), was a Swiss painter, water-colourist and engraver, and was a main figure in the ' pre-Romantic' movement. Biography Early life Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe was one of three sons of Jeanne-Marie Bissat and Jean-Rodolphe Du Cros, a writing and drawing master ("''maître d'écriture et de dessin''") at Moudon and later Yverdon College. He was born in Moudon (canton of Vaud) and not in Yverdon, as often repeated in error in several sources from the earliest days on, an error, no doubt, attributable to the fact that Du Cros, who grew up in Yverdon as a boy, thus considering himself to be "from Yverdon", attached "d'Yverdun" as a kind of '' epitheton ornans'' to his name, as did his friends, and biographers... He was educated at the college of Lausanne, where his parents destined him to go into commerce, to no avail. Du Cros preferred to go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normans
The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Francia followed a series of raids on the French northern coast mainly from what is now Denmark, although some also sailed from Norway and Sweden. These settlements were finally legitimized when Rollo, a Scandinavian Vikings, Viking leader, agreed to swear fealty to Charles the Simple, King Charles III of West Francia following the Siege of Chartres (911), siege of Chartres in 911, leading to the formation of the ''County of Rouen''. This new fief, through kinship in the decades to come, would expand into what came to be known as the ''Duchy of Normandy''. The Norse settlers, whom the region as well as its inhabitants were named after, adopted the language, Christianity, religion, culture, social customs and military, martial doctrine of the Wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siculo-Arabic
Siculo-Arabic or Sicilian Arabic is a group of Arabic variaties that were spoken in the Emirate of Sicily (which included Malta) from the 9th century, persisting under the subsequent County of Sicily, Norman rule until the 13th century. It was derived from Arabic following the Muslim conquest of Sicily, Abbasid conquest of Sicily in the 9th century and gradually marginalized following the Norman conquest of southern Italy, Norman conquest in the 11th century. Siculo-Arabic is extinct and is designated as a historical language that is attested only in writings from the 9th–13th centuries in Sicily. However, present-day Maltese language, Maltese is considered to be its sole surviving descendant. Maltese evolved from one of the dialects of Siculo-Arabic over the past 800 years and a gradual process of wikt:Special:Search/latinisation, Latinisation that gave Maltese a significant superstrate influence from Romance languages. By contrast, present-day Sicilian language, Sicilian, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aghlabids
The Aghlabid dynasty () was an Arab dynasty centered in Ifriqiya (roughly present-day Tunisia) from 800 to 909 that conquered parts of Sicily, Southern Italy, and possibly Sardinia, nominally as vassals of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Aghlabids were from the tribe of Banu Tamim and adhered to the Mu'tazilism, Mu'tazilite rationalist doctrine within Hanafi school, Hanafi Sunni Islam, which they imposed as the state doctrine of Ifriqiya. They ruled until 909 when they were Fatimid conquest of Ifriqiya, conquered by the new power of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimids. History Independence and consolidation In 800, the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab, son of a Greater Khorasan, Khurasanian Arab commander from the Banu Tamim tribe, as hereditary Emir of Ifriqiya, in response to the anarchy that had reigned in that province following the fall of the Muhallabids. At that time there were perhaps 100,000 Arabs living in Ifriqiya, although the Berbers stil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Melite (870)
The siege of Melite was the capture of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantine city of Melite (ancient city), Melite (modern Mdina, Malta) by an invading Aghlabid army in 870 AD. The siege was initially led by Halaf al-Hādim, a renowned engineer, but he was killed and replaced by Sawāda Ibn Muḥammad. The city withstood the siege for some weeks or months, but it ultimately fell to the invaders, and its inhabitants were massacred and the city was sacked. Background The Maltese islands had been part of the Byzantine Empire since 535 AD, and archaeological evidence suggests that they probably had an important strategic role within the empire. When the early Muslim conquests began in the 7th century, the Byzantines were threatened in the Mediterranean, so probably efforts were made to improve the defences of Malta. At this point, they might have built a Retrenchment (military), retrenchment which reduced Melite to one third of its original size. A Muslim reconnaissance raid to Malta might ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ifriqiya
Ifriqiya ( '), also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna (), was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania (roughly western Libya). It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of Africa Proconsularis and extended beyond it, but did not include the Mauretanias. To the south, Ifriqiya was bounded by the semi-arid lands and salt marshes named el-Djerid. The northern boundary fluctuated from as far north as Sicily to the North African coastline, and the western boundary usually reached Béjaïa. Ifriqiya is bordered to the west by the Central Maghreb, with which the borders are fluid depending on the chroniclers and the eras. The capital was briefly Carthage, then Kairouan, Qayrawan (Kairouan), then Mahdia, then Tunis. The Aghlabids, from their base in Kairouan, initiated the invasion of Southern Italy beginning in 827, and established the Emirate of Sicily, which lasted until it was conquered by the Normans, and the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maltese Islands
The geography of Malta is dominated by water. Malta is an archipelago of coralline limestone, located in Europe, in the Mediterranean Sea, 81 kilometres south of Sicily, Italy,From Żebbuġ in Malta, coordinates: 36°04'48.2"N 14°15'06.7"E to Cava d'Aliga ( Scicli) in Italy, coordinates: 36°43'22.5"N 14°41'10.9"E – Google Maps and nearly 300 km north (Libya) and northeast (Tunisia) of Africa. Although Malta is situated in Southern Europe, it is located farther south than Tunis, capital of Tunisia, Algiers, capital of Algeria, Tangier in Morocco and also Aleppo in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq in the Middle East. Only the three largest islands – Malta, Gozo and Comino – are inhabited. Other (uninhabited) islands are: Cominotto, Filfla and the St. Paul's Islands. The country is approximately in area. Numerous bays along the indented coastline of the islands provide harbours. The landscape of the islands is characterised by high hills with terraced fields. The high ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calabria
Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. It has 1,832,147 residents as of 2025 across a total area of . Catanzaro is the region's capital. Calabria is the birthplace of the name of Italy, given to it by the Ancient Greeks who settled in this land starting from the 8th century BC. They established the first cities, mainly on the coast, as Greek colonisation, Greek colonies. During this period Calabria was the heart of Magna Graecia, home of key figures in history such as Pythagoras, Herodotus and Milo of Croton, Milo. In Roman times, it was part of the ''Regio III Lucania et Bruttii'', a region of Roman Italy, Augustan Italy. After the Gothic War (535–554), Gothic War, it became and remained for five centuries a Byzantine empire, Byzantine dominion, fully recove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicily
Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4.7 million inhabitants, including 1.2 million in and around the capital city of Palermo, it is both the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean Sea. Sicily is named after the Sicels, who inhabited the eastern part of the island during the Iron Age. Sicily has a rich and unique culture in #Art and architecture, arts, Music of Sicily, music, #Literature, literature, Sicilian cuisine, cuisine, and Sicilian Baroque, architecture. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, and one of the most active in the world, currently high. The island has a typical Mediterranean climate. It is separated from Calabria by the Strait of Messina. It is one of the five Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
