Search This Blog

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Crusades Study Post #1


Crusades Post #1

Background of the Crusades 

Prior to the First Crusade 

Pagan cults were widespread throughout pre-Islamic Arabia till Muhamed united the Arabian clans under monotheism and propelled the Islamic conquest of Arabia.

The Pagans of Mecca are conquered in 630 and the Ka'bah now becomes a site for Islamic worship not pagan worship.

Islam spreads throughout the Middle-East and Europe.

Expansion under Muhammad, 622-632(Brown)   Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate (Orange), 632-661   Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661-750 (Mustard).


Muslims were largely tolerant of Judaism and Christianity dignifying them as "people of the book"

Differentiations between Sunni and Shia

Sunni traditions, Muhammad left no successor and the participants of the Saqifah event appointed Abu Bakr as the next-in-line (the first caliph).

Shia believed that only decendents of Ali (Muhamed's cousin and the first convert) and Fatima (Muhamed's daughter) could be the caliph.



Thursday, November 2, 2023

On Morphemes and Phonemes

Phonemes

Words are composed of phonemes (the smallest distinct unit of that can be segmented into speech), Phonemes are abstract units of sound in a language. Examples include  /p//b/.


Phonèmes

Les mots sont composés de phonèmes (les plus petites unités distinctes qui peuvent être segmentées en parole). Les phonèmes sont des unités abstraites de son dans une langue. Des exemples incluent /p/, /b/.



English Phonetic Alphabet 











The French Phonetic Alphabet 








Morphemes

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning that compose words.

 

Morphology can be 

Isolating (Analytic language) in which a morpheme per word ratio is close to one, and with no inflectional morphology (the modification of words as they pertain to grammatical categories) whatsoever. In the extreme case, each word contains a single morpheme. Examples include Mandarine Vietnamese and Yoruba. Because of the lack of inflection, word order and context are important in deriving meaning. They do not use bound morphemes. 

English is mostly analytic but has some fusional elements.







Fusional languages (Synthetic) use a complex system of inflection and affixes to encode multiple grammatical features within single word forms. The level of morphological complexity and the degree of synthesis are key factors that differentiate these language types. Examples of this include Arabic and German. On the extreme end is Mohawk which has a very high morpheme-to-word ratio. 


En Francais 


Alphabet phonétique anglais


L'alphabet phonétique français


Morphèmes


Les morphèmes sont les plus petites unités de sens qui composent les mots.


La morphologie peut être isolante (langue analytique), dans laquelle le ratio morphème par mot est proche de un, et sans morphologie flexionnelle (la modification des mots en ce qui concerne les catégories grammaticales). Dans le cas extrême, chaque mot contient un seul morphème. Des exemples incluent le mandarin, le vietnamien et le yoruba. En raison du manque de flexion, l'ordre des mots et le contexte sont importants pour dériver la signification. Ils n'utilisent pas de morphèmes liés.


L'anglais est principalement analytique mais comporte certains éléments fusionnels.


Les langues fusionnelles (synthétiques) utilisent un système complexe de flexion et d'affixes pour coder de multiples caractéristiques grammaticales dans des formes de mots simples. Le niveau de complexité morphologique et le degré de synthèse sont des facteurs clés qui différencient ces types de langues. Des exemples incluent l'arabe et l'allemand. À l'extrême se trouve le mohawk qui a un ratio morphème-par-mot très élevé.




























The Boer Wars

The Boer Wars were two wars fought between the South African Boers (Farmers) and the British Empire. Who Were the Boers? "Boer" (p...