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Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul) (a Turkish contraction of Greek εις την πολιν "into the city", the former Constantinople, Κωνσταντινούπολις) is the largest city in Turkey, and arguably the most important. It is located on the Bosphorus strait, and encompasses the natural harbor known as the Golden Horn (Turkish: Haliç), in the northwest of the country. It is officially located in both Europe and Asia, but is generally considered European, perhaps because its predecessor, Constantinople, was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Its 2000 Census population is 8,803,468 (city proper) and 10,018,735 (metropolitan area), making it, by some counts, one of the largest cities, in Europe. Census bureau estimate of 7/20/2005 is 11,322,000 for the city proper. İstanbul is located at , and is the capital of İstanbul Province. Originally founded by Greek colonists as Byzantium taking its name from their leader Byzas from Megara, it was made into the eastern capital of the Roman Empire in AD 324, by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great; Byzantium was renamed Nova Roma ("New Rome"), but this name failed to impress; and the city soon became known as Constantinople, "the City of Constantine". With the fall of Rome and the Western Roman Empire, Constantinople became the sole capital of what historians now call the Byzantine Empire. This empire was distinctly Greek in culture, and became the centre of Greek Orthodox Christianity after an earlier split with Rome, and was adorned with many impressive churches; including the once, world's-largest cathedral: Hagia Sophia. The seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, was located in what is now Istanbul. After the Fall of Constantinople to the invading Turks, in 1453, Constantinople became part of the Ottoman Empire and soon, its capital. Before the conquest, Turks called the city İstanbul, but officially used the name Qusţanţaniyyeh (قسطنطنيه), which means "City of Constantine" in Arabic. Only on March 28, 1930, was the city officially renamed İstanbul. This often causes confusion among foreigners, as illustrated by the song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by The Four Lads. The Four Lads

Etymology

The Four Lads (March 2005)]] The name İstanbul comes from the Greek words eis tin Poli (pronounced IS TIN BOLI) and meaning "in the city" or "to the city", Constantinople being the largest city in the world (στήν Πόλι), from Classical Greek eis tên Polin (εις τήν Πόλι(ν)). The intermediate form Stamboul was commonly used by the Turks in the 19th century. Because of the custom of affixing an i before certain words that start with two consonants (as in "İzmir" from Smyrna: in a coincidence of s + m, the s turns to z in pronunciation as has been attested since early Byzantine times and in modern Greek usage), it was pronounced in Turkish İstambul. (The m in the middle is also the Turkish linguistic custom of changing the n before a p or b, as in çenber → çember, anbar → ambar, although rules like this are not always observed in proper nouns like İstanbul). Also in Greek an N before a P becomes an M, and the P after N becomes a B in pronunciation. Similar examples of modern Turkish town names derived from Greek are İzmit (from İznikmit which was Nicomedia and İznik (from Greek, Nicaea: "eis tin Nikaia" (pron. IS TIN NIKEA), becoming "ZNİK". Arab writers called the city Qusţanţini/--yye, but the Ottomans used several additional names, e.g. Pây-i taht, "the foot of the throne" (Persian); Asitane; and Islambol, "lots of Islam".

History

İznik Byzantium was the original name of the modern city of İstanbul. Byzantium was originally settled by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas. The name "Byzantium" is a transliteration of the original Greek name Βυζάντιον; (Demotic Modern Greek spells this υζάντιο, pronounced IPA //). After siding with Pescennius Niger against the victorious Septimius Severus the city was besieged by Rome and suffered extensive damage in 196 AD. Byzantium was rebuilt by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and quickly regained its previous prosperity. The location of Byzantium attracted Constantine the Great who, in 330 AD, refounded it as Nova Roma or Constantinoupolis after himself (Constantinople,Greek: Konstantinoupolis or Κωνσταντινούπολη or Κωνσταντινούπολις) after a prophetic dream was said to have identified the location of the city. The name Nova Roma never came into common use. The Eastern Roman Empire which had its capital in Constantinople from then until 1453, has often been called the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium by modern scholars. The combination of imperialism and location would play an important role as the crossing point between two continents (Europe and Asia), and later a magnet for Africa and others as well, in terms of commerce, culture, diplomacy and strategy. At a strategic position, Constantinoupolis was able to control the route between Asia and Europe, as well as the passage from the Mediterranean Sea to the Efxinos Pontos (Black Sea). Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. In Byzantine times the Greeks called Constantinople i Poli ("The City"), since it was the centre of the Greek world and for most of the Byzantine period the largest city in Europe. It was captured and sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and then re-captured by Nicaean forces under the command of Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261. 1261 On May 29 1453 the city fell to the Ottoman Turks (See the Fall of Constantinople) and was part of the Ottoman Empire until its official dissolution on November 1 1922. The Ottoman Turks called the city Stamboul or İstanbul. During the Ottoman period the city went through a complete cultural change from an imperial Byzantine city to an Ottoman Islamic one. Hagia Sophia was converted to a Mosque as were several other churches in the city. Other Mosques were constructed around the city, each Sultan having built a grand Mosque to commemorate his reign. Amongst these Mosques, the most impressive are; Beyazit Mosque, Suleymaniye (The largest Mosque in İstanbul), Sultan Ahmed Mosque (The first Friday sermon or "Khutba" in this Mosque was read by the Jelveti Sufi Sheikh Aziz Mahmud Hudayi) and Fatih Mosque. The wives and mothers of the Sultans also contibuted to the construction of Mosques and several Mosques both on the European and Asian sides of the city have the name Valide Sultan Mosque to signify that they were constructed under the orders of the Sultans mother. Sufi orders which were so widespread in the Islamic world and who had many followers who had activly participated in the conquest of the city came to settle in the capital. During Ottoman times over 100 Tekkes were active in İstanbul alone. Many of these Tekkes survive to this day some in the form of Mosques while others as museums such as the Jerrahi Tekke in Fatih, the Sunbul Effendi and Ramazan Effendi Mosque and Turbes also in Fatih, the Galata Mevlevihane in Beyoglu, the Yahya Effendi Tekke in Besiktas and the Bektashi Tekke in Kadikoy which now serves Alevi Muslims as a Cem Evi. Cem Evi Cem Evi Cem Evi Cem Evi When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved from Constantinople to Ankara. İstanbul became the official name in 1930. In the early years of the republic, İstanbul was overlooked in favour of the new capital Ankara, but during the 1950s-1960s İstanbul underwent great structural change. The city's once numerous and prosperous Greek community, remnants of the city's Greek origins, dwindled in the aftermath of the 1955 İstanbul Pogrom and most Greeks leaving their homes for Greece. In the 1960s the government of Adnan Menderes sought to develop the country as a whole and new roads and factories were constructed throughout the country. Wide modern road were built in İstanbul but some, unfortunately, were at the expense of historical buildings within the city. During the 1970s the population of Istanbul began to rapidly increase as people from Anatolia migrated to the city to find employment in the many new factories that were constructed on the outskirts of the city. This sudden sharp increase in the population caused a rapid rise in housing development (some of poor quality resulting in great death and injury during the frequent eathquakes that hit the city) and many previously outlying villages became engulfed into the greater metropolis of İstanbul. Many Turks who have lived in İstanbul for over 30 or more years can still recollect how areas such as large parts of Maltepe, Kartal, Pendik and others were green fields when they were young. Other areas such as Tuzla were nothing more than sleepy villages. A more complete history of İstanbul before 1453 can be found at the Constantinople article.

Places to visit

Constantinople was a cultural and ethnic melting pot. As a result, there are many historical Mosques, Churches, Synagogues and Palaces to visit in the city.

Buildings and monuments

Constantinople Constantinople] Constantinople]
- Arap Mosque
- Basilica Cistern
- Bulgarian St Stephen Church (also known as "Bulgarian Iron Church")
- Castle of Seven Towers
- Chora Church
- Dolmabahçe Palace
- Fatih Mosque
- Galata Tower
- Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya camii)
- Hippodrome of Constantinople
- Mosaic Museum
- Rumeli Hisari
- Sadberk Hanım Museum
- Sultanahmet Mosque or Blue Mosque
- Süleymaniye Mosque
- Topkapı Palace
- Maiden's Tower (Kiz Kulesi)

Markets, neighborhoods and places

- Bebek fish restaurants
- Beyoglu
- Golden Horn
- Istiklal Avenue
- Prince's Islands
- Taksim Square
- The Grand Bazaar, İstanbul
- The Spice Bazaar, İstanbul
- Eyup Sultan Cemetery The cross-continent European walking route E8 trail begins/ends here, running 4700km to Cork, Ireland.

Seismic risk

İstanbul is situated near the North Anatolian fault, an active fault which has been responsible for several deadly earthquakes in contemporary history. Studies show that there are high risks of a devastating earthquake near İstanbul in the coming decades.[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1999/aug25/quake.html][http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/04/28/istanbul.quake.enn/] The difficulties of imposing suitable building rules is likely to result in a large number of collapses, especially in cheap masonry dwellings.[http://atlas.cc.itu.edu.tr/~barka/pubs/ist_haz/istanbul.html]

Education

İstanbul holds finest education institutes in Turkey, including a number of universities. Most of these universities are public, but recent years have seen an upsurge in private universities. Istanbul Technical University, Bosphorus University, University of Istanbul, University of Marmara, Yildiz Technical University are the known public universities of Istanbul. Sabanci University, Koc University, Bilgi University, Yeditepe University, Kadir Has University and University of Halic are some of the private universities located in this city.

Transportation

Main article: Public transport in İstanbul

Airports

- Atatürk International Airport (IST)
- Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW)

Climate

Temperate-Continental People coming to İstanbul can expect long, hot and humid summers and cold, rainy and snowy winters. The total precipitation for İstanbul averages 870 mm per year. The humidity of the city is constantly high which makes the air feel much harsher than the actual temperatures. The average maximum temperatures during the winter months vary between 03C and 08C. Contrary to common belief, snowfall is common and can be heavy, and can fall between in November and April. The summer months -- June through September - bring average daytime temperatures of 28 C degrees or higher. Despite summer being the driest season, rain is common and monsoon-like floods occur during that season.

Districts

Sister cities

İstanbul has 26 sister cities (aka "twin towns"):
- Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan
- Amman, Jordan
- Barcelona, Spain
- Busan, South Korea
- Cairo, Egypt
- Cologne, Germany
- Constanta, Romania
- Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- Durres, Albania
- Houston, Texas, United States of America
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
- Johor Bahru, Malaysia
- Kazan, Tatarstan
- Khartoum, Republic of Sudan
- Mari, Turkmenistan
- Odessa, Ukraine
- Osh, Kyrgyz Republic
- Plovdiv, Bulgaria
- Rabat, Morocco
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Shanghai, People's Republic of China
- Shimonoseki, Japan
- Skopje, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
- St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

External links

- [http://www.ibb.gov.tr/en-US/AnaSayfa/ Municipality of Greater İstanbul (Turkish and English)]
- [http://www2.arch.uiuc.edu/research/rgouster/ Byzantine antiquities of İstanbul]
- [http://mypage.iu.edu/~ktuncay/Turkey/index.html Historic Pictures] Kagan Tuncay
- [http://members.fortunecity.com/fstav1/patrides/patrides.html Museum in İstanbul]
- [http://www.photoglobe.info/spc_istanbul.html İstanbul from Space]
- [http://istanbul.tourism-central.com İstanbul Tourism Central]
- [http://www.turkeyforecast.com/weather/istanbul/ İstanbul Weather Forecast Information]
- [http://ozhanozturk.com/content/view/89/45/ From Constantinople to Istanbul]
- [http://ozhanozturk.com/content/view/402/1/ Free travel guide to Istanbul]
- [http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/archaeological_museum_istanbul Pictures from the Archaeological Museum] Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul Category:Cities along the Silk Road Istanbul Istanbul ja:イスタンブール ko:이스탄불 simple:Istanbul

Turkish language

Turkish (Türkçe) is a Turkic language spoken natively in Turkey, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Bulgaria, as well as by several million immigrants in the European Union. The number of native speakers is uncertain, primarily due to a lack of minority language data from Turkey. The figure of 60 million used here assumes that Turkish is the mother tongue of 80% of the Turkish population, with making up most of the remainder. (Linguistic minorities in Turkey are, however, bilingual in Turkish.) There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and other Oghuz languages such as Azeri, , and . If these are counted together as "Turkish", the number of native speakers is 100 million, and the total number including second-language speakers is around 125 million.

Classification

Turkish is a member of the Turkish family of languages, which includes Balkan Gagauz Turkish, Gagauz, and Khorasani Turkish in addition to Osmanli Turkish. The Turkish family is a subgroup of the Oghuz languages, themselves a subgroup of the Turkic languages, which most linguists believe to be member of an Altaic language family. Like Finnish and Hungarian, Turkish has vowel harmony, is agglutinative and has no grammatical gender. Word order is usually Subject Object Verb. Turkish has a T-V distinction: second-person plural forms can be used for individuals as a sign of respect.

Geographic distribution

Turkish is spoken in Turkey and by minorities in 35 other countries. In particular, Turkish is used in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Bulgaria, Romania, the former Yugoslavia (specifically in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija on a local level), and the Republic of Macedonia.

Official status

Turkish is the official language of Turkey, and is one-although today it is less spoken- of the official languages of Cyprus. It is also an official or national language in Bulgaria. In Turkey, the Turkish Language Society (Türk Dil Kurumu) was founded by Kemal Atatürk in 1932 as the Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for the Investigation of the Turkish Language"), an independent body. In August, 1983, when Turkey was under martial law as a result of the military coup of 1980, the Turkish Language Society was brought under the control of the prime ministry.

Dialects

Dialects of Turkish include Danubian, Eskişehir (spoken in Eskişehir Province), Razgrad, Dinler, Rumelian, Karamanlı (spoken in Karaman Province), Edirne (spoken in Edirne), Gaziantep (spoken in Gaziantep Province), Urfa (spoken in Şanlıurfa Province), and Goynuk (a village in Bolu).

Sounds

One characteristic feature of Turkish is vowel harmony. For example, if the first vowel of a Turkish word is a front vowel, the second and other vowels of the same word are usually the same vowel or another front vowel: vişne "sour cherry": i is close unround front, e is open unround front. Stress is usually on the last syllable, with the exception of some suffix combinations and words like masa ['masa].

Consonants

The phoneme usually refered to as "soft g", "ğ" in Turkish orthography, actually represents a rather weak front-velar or palatal approximant between front vowels. When it is word-final or preceding another consonant it lengthens the preceding vowel. In all other positions, it is not pronounced at all.

Vowels

Grammar

Turkish has an abundance of suffixes, but no prefixes (apart from the reduplicating intensifier prefix as in beyaz="white", bembeyaz="very white", sıcak="hot", sımsıcak="very hot"). (Some Arabic loan words have their own prefixes, but those are the common prefixes of Arabic.) One word can have many suffixes. Suffixes can be used to create new words (see #Vocabulary) or to indicate the grammatical function of a word. Turkish nouns can take endings indicating the person of a possessor. They can take case-endings, as in Latin. (The series of case-endings is the same for every noun, except for spelling changes owing to vowel harmony, and variation between voiced and unvoiced consonants.) Finally, they can take endings that give them a person and make them into sentences: ev "house", eviniz "your house", evinizde "at your house", Evinizdeyiz "We are at your house." Turkish adjectives as such are not declined (though they can generally be used as nouns, in which case they are declined). Used attributively, they precede the nouns they modify. Turkish verbs exhibit person. They can be made negative or impotential; they can also be made potential. Finally, Turkish verbs exhibit various distinctions of tense, mood, and aspect: a verb can be progressive, necessitative, aorist, future, inferential, present, past, conditional, imperative, or optative. gel- "(to) come", gelme- "not (to) come", geleme- "not (to) be able to come", gelebil- "(to) be able to come", Gelememiş "She [or he] was apparently unable to come." Gelememişti "She had not been able to come." Gelememiştiniz "You (pl) had not been able to come." Gelememiş miydiniz? "Was it the case that you (pl) were not able to come?" All Turkish verbs are conjugated the same way, except for the irregular and defective verb i- (see Turkish copula), which can be used in compound forms: Gelememişti = Gelememiş idi = Gelememiş + i- + -di Word order in Turkish is generally Subject Object Verb, as in Japanese and Latin, but not English. This can be seen in the following sentence from a newspaper (Cumhuriyet, 16 August 2005, p. 1). The sentence uses all noun cases except the genitive: Türkiye'de modayı gazete sayfalarına taşıyan, gazetemiz yazarlarından N. S. yaşamını yitirdi: Türkiye'de "in Turkey" (locative) modayı "fashion" (accusative of moda) gazete "newspaper" (nominative) sayfalarına "to its pages" (dative; sayfa "page", sayfalar "pages", sayfaları "its pages") taşıyan, "carrying" (present participle of taşı-) gazetemiz "our newspaper" (nominative) yazarlarından "from its writers" (ablative; yazar "writer") N. S. [person's name] (nominative) yaşamını "her life" (accusative; yaşam "life") yitirdi. "lost" (past tense of yitir- "lose" from yit- "be lost") "One of the writers of our newspaper, N. S., who brought fashion to newspaper pages in Turkey, lost her life."

Vocabulary

Turkish has the resources for building up many new words from old: from nouns: göz "eye", gözlük "eyeglasses" gözlükçü "someone who sells glasses" gözlükçülük "the business of selling glasses" and from verbs: yat- "lie down" yatır- "lay down [that is, cause to lie down]" yatırım "instance of laying down: deposit, investment" yatırımcı "depositor, investor". Turkish vocabulary has gone through drastic changes in the history of the language. In the last sixty years, Turkish vocabulary has gone through changes that might take three centuries in another language.

Replaced old words

When the Turks came from middle Asia to Anatolia about a thousand years ago, they came in contact with Islam and the Arabic societies. Since the Turks accepted Islam, Arabic words (and fewer, Persian words) started infiltrating the language. During the course of over six hundred years of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish kept borrowing loan words from these two languages. Towards the end of the 19th century, this got to a point where the language was rather called the Ottoman language. This is because Turkish had been inundated with so many loan words that the language became a mix of Turkish, Arabic and Persian. In contemporary Turkey, the Ottoman language is almost incomprehensible. After Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey, he established the "Turkish Language Foundation" (Türk Dil Kurumu, TDK), whose task was to replace Arabic and Persian origin words with their new Turkish counterparts. The foundation succeeded in removing several hundred Arabic words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by TDK are new, TDK also suggested using old Turkish words which had not been used in the language for centuries. Older and younger people in Turkey tend to express themselves with different vocabulary. While the generations born up to the 1940s tend to use the old Arabic origin words (even the obsolete ones), the younger generations favor using the new expressions. Some new words are not used as often as their old counterparts or have failed to convey the intrinsic meanings of their old equivalents. Among some of the old words that were replaced are terms in geometry, directions (north, south, east, west), some of the months and many nouns and adjectives. Many new words have also been derived from verbs. Some examples of new and their old counterparts are: Please see List of replaced loan words in Turkish for an extensive list of replaced old words and current loan words

Writing system

Turkish is written using a modified version of the Latin alphabet, which was introduced in 1928 by Kemal Atatürk as part of his efforts to modernize Turkey. Until 1928, Turkish was written using a modified version of the Arabic alphabet (see Ottoman Turkish language), but use of the Arabic alphabet was outlawed after the Latin alphabet was introduced. See Turkish alphabet.

The language in daily life

Turkish has many formulaic expressions for various social situations. Several of them feature Arabic verbal nouns together with the Turkish verb et- ("make, do"). A famous quotation and motto of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk:
- Yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh "Peace at home, peace in the world." In the current language, this is
- Yurtta barış, dünyada barış.

References

- International Phonetic Association (1999) Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ISBN 0-521-63751-1
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External links

- [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turkishlearner/ A discussion list for the learners of Turkish]
- [http://www.langtolang.com/ Langtolang Turkish, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Finnish, Esperanto, Swahili, Serbo_Croat Multilingual Dictionary]
- [http://www.turkce-ingilizce.com/ Turkish-English and English-Turkish Online Dictionary]
- [http://www.123lasvegas.info Free turkish dictionary.]
- [http://www.tdk.org.tr/TDKSOZLUK/SOZBUL.ASP Turkish to Turkish Dictionary.]
- [http://turkisaretdili.ku.edu.tr Turkish to Turkish Sign Language (TID) Visual Dictionary]
- [http://www.turkishclass.com Learn Turkish language online.]
- [http://www.fdicts.com/dictlist1.php?k1=97 All free Turkish dictionaries]
- [http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=TRK Ethnologue report for Turkish]
- [http://www.onlineturkish.com onlineturkish.com]
- [http://www.weberberg.de/infoport/tuerkisch Free online Turkish course written in German ]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/translation/Turkish/ Dictionary] with Turkish - English Translations from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition
- [http://www.zargan.com.tr/ Online Turkish-English/English-Turkish dictionary]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Turkish-english/ Turkish - English Dictionary]
- [http://www.langtolang.com/ A comprehensive and accurate Turkish-(English/French/Italian/and various other languages) dictionary]
- [http://aton.ttu.edu Texas Tech University, Archive of Turkish Oral Narrative]
- [http://www.turkcebilgi.com/T%FCrk%E7e An Information site in Turkish Language]
- [http://www.ipb.nu/winmekmak/ WinMekMak - Turkish Verb Conjugator]
- [http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/pf.htm The best site for learning Turkish with detailed explanations]
- [http://www.turkishdictionary.net/ Turkish dictionary available for use in various forms]
- [http://miejipang.homestead.com/untitled18.html Let's try to learn Hungarian(Magyar) and Turkish!] Category:Languages of Turkey Category:Languages of Cyprus Category:Languages of the Republic of Macedonia Category:Agglutinative languages Category:Vowel harmony languages category:Turkic languages ja:トルコ語 th:ภาษาตุรกี

Turkish language

Classification

Geographic distribution

Official status

Dialects

Sounds

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar

Vocabulary

Replaced old words

Writing system

The language in daily life

References

- International Phonetic Association (1999) Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ISBN 0-521-63751-1
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-
-

External links

Greek language

Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA – "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in Greece, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, particularly The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey. There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the world, such as those in Melbourne, Australia which is the third-largest Greek-populated city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki. Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, the first true alphabet, since the 9th century B.C. and before that, in Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries. Greek literature has a long and rich tradition.

History

This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main article on Proto-Greek language. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet (q.v.) is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:
- Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards.
- Classical Greek (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy.
- Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature).
- Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
- Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century). Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today. It has been claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages. Still, Koinē , the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers. Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.

Classification

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (which may be regarded as a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian seems to be the most closely related to it.

Geographic distribution

Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus. There are also Greek-speaking populations in Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Southern Italy. The language is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Official status

Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of Greece and Cyprus, Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.

Phonology

This section generally describes the post-Classic phonology of the Greek language. :All phonetic transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet

Vowel sounds

Greek has 5 vowel sounds, all phonemic:

Constantinople

:This article details the history of Constantinople before the Turkish Conquest of 1453. For details on the city since 1453, see İstanbul. İstanbul Constantinople (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολις) was the original and best known name of the modern city of İstanbul in Turkey in its role over more than a millennium as capital, first of the Eastern Roman Empire, subsequently of the Byzantine Empire. The last imperial designation reveals the city's even more ancient Greek name: Byzantium. Constantinople was located strategically between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe met Asia, and was highly significant as the successor to ancient Rome and the largest and wealthiest city in Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

Names

The name of Constantinople is an honorific eponym referencing its founder, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Constantine established the Greek city of Byzantium as the second capital of the Roman Empire on May 11, AD 330, naming the city Nova Roma (New Rome). That particular name, however, enjoyed little common use, and it was as the 'City of Constantine' (Constantinopolis) that it lived through the subsequent centuries. A historical Slavic name for the city was Tsargrad. The word is an Old Church Slavonic translation of the Greek, presumably of Βασιλεως Πόλις, "the city of the emperor [king]": combining the Slavonic words tsar for "Caesar" and grad for "city", it stood for "the City of the Emperor [Caesar]". As fashions have changed the term has faded, and the word Tsargrad is now an archaic term in Russian, but is still used occasionally in Bulgarian. The Ottoman Turks called the city Stamboul or İstanbul, adopting a usage in Greek "eis tin Poli" (to or at the City). But they still used "Konstantiniyye" ("Constantine's City", or Constantinople) as the official name. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved to Ankara. Constantinople was officially renamed İstanbul by the Republic of Turkey in 1930.

Byzantium

Constantine's foundation of New Rome on this site reflected its strategic and commercial importance from the earliest times, lying as it does astride both the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black or Euxine Sea to the Mediterranean, whilst also being possessed of an excellent and spacious harbour in the Golden Horn. No doubt for these reasons, a city was first founded on the site in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, when in 667 BC the legendary Byzas established it with a group of citizens from the town of Megara. This city was named Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον), after its founder.

Constantine's Foundation

Byzantium, ca. 1000)]] Constantine had altogether more ambitious plans. Having restored the unity of the empire, now overseeing the progress of major governmental reforms and sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, Constantine was well aware that Rome had become an unsatisfactory capital for several reasons. Located in central Italy, Rome lay too far from the eastern imperial frontiers, and hence also from the legions and the Imperial courts.Moreover, Rome offered an undesirable playground for disaffected politicians; it also suffered regularly from flooding and from malaria. It seemed impossible to many that the capital could be moved. Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the correct place: a city where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the empire. Constantine laid out the expanded city, dividing it into 14 regions, and ornamenting it with great public works worthy of a great imperial city. Yet initially Constantinople did not have all the dignities of Rome, possessing a proconsul, rather than a prefect of the city. Furthermore, it had no praetors, tribunes or quaestors. Although Constantinople did have senators, they held the title clarus, not clarissimus, like those of Rome. Nor did it have the panoply of other administrative offices regulating the food-supply, the police, the statues, the temples, the sewers, the aqueducts and other public works. The new program of building was carried out in great haste: columns, marbles, doors and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of the empire and removed to the new city. By the same token, however, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial estates in Asiana and Pontica, and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free distributions of food would be made to citizens. At the time the amount is said to have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city.

Public buildings

332 Constantinople was a Christian city, lying in the most Christianised part of the Empire. Justinian made the temples of Byzantium into ruins, and erected the splendid Church of the Holy Wisdom, Sancta Sophia (also known as Hagia Sophia in Greek), as the centrepiece of his Christian capital. He oversaw also the building of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and that of St Irene. Constantine laid out anew the square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it the Augusteum in honour of his mother, Helena. Sancta Sophia lay on the north side of the Augusteum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the emperor with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of Daphne. Located immediately nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the Baths of Zeuxippus (both originally built in the time of Severus). At the entrance at the western end of the Augusteum was the Milestone, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Empire. From the Augusteum a great street, the Mese, led, lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where there was a second senate-house, then on and through the Forum of Taurus and then the Forum of Bous, and finally up the Sixth Hill and through to the Golden Gate on the Propontis. The Mese would be seven Roman miles long to the Golden Gate of the Walls of Theodosius. Constantine erected a high column in the centre of the Forum, on the Second Hill, with a statue of himself at the top, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking towards the rising sun.

Constantinople in the Divided Empire

Walls of Theodosius, on a contemporary silver plate (Royal Academy of History, Madrid)]] The first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople was Honoratus, who took office on 11 December 359 and held it until 361. The emperor Valens built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near the Golden Gate, probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors, up to Zeno and Basiliscus, who were elevated at Constantinople, were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I founded the church of John the Baptist to house a relic of the saint, put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coachhouse for the Praetorian Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of Constantine. Gradually the importance of the city increased. Following the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 376, when the emperor Valens with the flower of the Roman armies was destroyed by the Goths within a few days' march of the city, Constantinople looked to its defences, and Theodosius II built in 413-414 the 60-foot tall walls which were never to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius also founded a University at the Capitolium near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425. In the 5th century, when the barbarians overran the Western Empire, its emperors retreated to Ravenna before it collapsed altogether. Thereafter, Constantinople became in truth the greatest city of the Empire, and the greatest in the world. Emperors were no longer peripatetic between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great City, and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia flowed into Constantinople.

The City under Justinian

The emperor Justinian (527-565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure the ship of the commander, Belisarius, anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where (as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed their approval of a new emperor; and also where they openly criticised the government, or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. In the time of Justinian, public order in Constantinople became a critical political issue. The entire late Roman and early Byzantine period was one where Christianity was resolving fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the orthodox and the monophysites became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to the horse-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens, and in the form of a major rebellion in the capital of 532 AD, known as the "Nika" riots (from the battle-cry of "Victory!" of those involved). "Nika" riots Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the basilica of St Sophia, the city's principal church. Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with the incomparable St Sophia, the great cathedral of the Orthodox Church, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could attend services without passing through the streets (St Sophia was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the city, and is now a museum). The dedication took place on Christmas Day of 537 AD in the presence of the Emperor, who exclaimed, "O Solomon, I have outdone thee!" Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the Holy Apostles, built by Constantine, with a new church under the same dedication. This was designed in the form of an equally-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the eleventh century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror.

The City after Justinian

Justinian was succeeded in turn by Justin II, Tiberius II and Maurice, able emperors who had to deal with a deteriorating military situation, especially on the eastern frontier. Subsequently there was a period of near-anarchy, which was exploited by the enemies of the Empire. After the Avars came to threaten Constantinople from the west and simultaneously the Persians from the East, Heraclius, the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the purple. He found the situation so dire that at first he contemplated moving the imperial capital to Carthage, but with military genius he succeeded in expelling the invaders. No sooner had he carried war into their own territories, however, and achieved an advantageous peace with Persia, than he was faced with the Arab expansion. Constantinople was besieged twice by the Arabs, once in a long blockade between 674 and 678, and once again in 717.

Importance of the City in its prime

Constantinople was historically important for a number of reasons. 717 Byzantium, later Constantinople, was one of the larger and richer urban centers in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenic period and later during the Roman Empire, mostly due to its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean and the Black Sea. During the Fourth Century AD the Emperor Constantine relocated his eastern capital to Byzantium, hence the name Constantinople (Constantine's City), in an attempt to reinvigorate the Empire. It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek speaking empire, short several interregnums, for over a thousand years. As the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (now commonly known as the Byzantine Empire), the Greeks called Constantinople simply "the City", while throughout Europe it was known as the "Queen of Cities." In its heyday, roughly corresponding to what is now known as the Middle Ages, it was the richest and largest European city, exerting a powerful cultural pull and dominating economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, particularly the Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. A Russian 14th-century traveller, Stephen of Novgorod, wrote, "As for St Sofia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it". The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in its extensive copying throughout Europe, particular examples include St. Mark's in Venice, the basilica of Ravenna and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th century Italian florin, the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the solidus of Diocletian becoming the bezant prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its city walls (the Theodosian Walls) and urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping a memory alive of the skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire. The city, also provided a defence for the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire against the invasions of the 5th century, for Europe against the Arabs, and for European Christendom against Islam. Constantine assured the position of the Bishop or Patriarch of Constantinople as pre-eminent in the Eastern Empire. This action placed Constantinople at the religious heart of Orthodoxy. The Patriarch of Constantinople is still considered first among equals in the Orthodox Church along with the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and the later Slavic Patriarchs. This position is largely ceremonial but still carries emotional weight.

The Isaurians

In the eighth and ninth centuries the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act which was fiercely resisted by the citizens. Constantine V convoked a church council in 754 which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken, burned, or painted over. Following the death of his son Leo IV in 780, the empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

The Comneni and Palaeologi

787, 1840]] Following the catastrophic defeat in 1071 of the emperor Romanus IV Diogenes by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in Armenia, his successor Michael VII pleaded for assistance from the West. In due course this was to lead to the First Crusade, which assembled at Constantinople in 1096 in the reign of Alexius I Comnenus, and moved on towards Jerusalem. Much of this is documented by the writer and historian Anna Comnena in her work The Alexiad. The Crusades were, however, to lead in time to the disastrous capture and sack of Constantinople by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade on April 12 1204. For the subsequent half-century or more, Constantinople remained the centre of the Roman Catholic crusader state, set up after the city's capture under Baldwin IX, and which became known as the Latin Kingdom. During this time, the Byzantine emperors made their capital at nearby Nicaea, which acted as the capital of the temporary, short-lived Empire of Nicaea and a refuge for refugees from the sacked city of Constantinople. From this base, Constantinople was eventually recaptured from its last Latin ruler, Baldwin II, by Byzantine forces under Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261. The Palaeologi founded a beautiful new imperial palace at Blachernae in the north-west of the city, the Great Palace subsequently falling into disuse.

The Ottomans

Blachernae (painted 1499)]] Constantinople and the Empire finally fell to the Ottoman Empire on Tuesday May 29, 1453, during the reign of Constantine XI Paleologus (see Fall of Constantinople). Although the Turks overthrew the Byzantines, Fatih Sultan Mehmed the Second (the Ottaman Sultan at the time) let Orthodox Patriarchy to continue its affairs, having stated that they did not want to join the Vatican.

Constantinople in popular culture

- Constantinople appears as a dusty faded capital, shorn of its glories, in William Butler Yeats' 1926 poem Sailing to Byzantium.
- Constantinople's change of name was the theme for a song by The Four Lads later covered by They Might Be Giants entitled Istanbul (Not Constantinople) [http://www.lyricsdepot.com/they-might-be-giants/istanbul-not-constantinople.html]. "Constantinople" was also the title of the opening track of The Residents' EP Duck Stab!, released in 1978.
- Constantinople under Justinian is the scene of "A Flame in Byzantium" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro released in 1987.

Notes

- Constantinople is derived from the Greek Κωνσταντινούπολη. Other names for the city:
- Turkish name: İstanbul.
- Modern Greek name: Κωνσταντινούπολη, older name: Κωνσταντινούπολις (Konstantinoupolis; see also List of traditional Greek place names)
- Roman name: Constantinopolis;
- Latin name: Constantinopolis, Nova Roma
- Arabic name: قسطنطينية (Kostantiniyya)
- Armenian name: Konstaninopolis / Gonstantinobolis
- Swedish viking name: Miklagård
- Ottoman Turkish name: Konstantiniyye.
- Slavonic name: Tsargrad (Царьград).
- Stamboul (used by British and other diplomatic corps in "The City")
- The Sublime Porte - the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, so-called for its gate-location within the Topkapi and often used as a synonym for "Constantinople" in diplomatic notes (the same way "Whitehall" would be used in the case of the British Foreign Office, or "No. 10 Downing" to refer to the PMO)
- Source for quote: Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed T Preger I 105 (see A A Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 1952, vol I p 188).

External links

- [http://www.sephardicstudies.org/istanbul.html Info on the name change] from the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture
- [http://www2.arch.uiuc.edu/research/rgouster Welcome to Constantinople], documenting the monuments of Byzantine Constantinople, compiled by Robert Ousterhout, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/BURLAT/3
- .html#1 Constantinople], from History of the Later Roman Empire, by J.B. Bury
- [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04301a.htm History of Constantinople] from the "New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia."
- [http://www.byzantium1200.com/ Byzantium 1200], A project aimed at creating computer reconstructions of the Byzantine Monuments located in Istanbul, Turkey as of year 1200 AD. Category:Byzantine Empire Category:Cities along the Silk Road Category:Holy cities Category:Ottoman Empire Category:Roman sites in Turkey Category:Roman colonies ko:콘스탄티노폴리스 ja:コンスタンティノポリス

Bosporus

:This article is about the strait; Bosphorus is also a university in Turkey, whereas Cimmerian Bosporus was the ancient Hellenic state Cimmerian Bosporus The Bosporus (Greek: Βόσπορος) is a strait that separates the European part (Rumeli) of Turkey from its Asian part (Anadolu), connecting the Sea of Marmara (Turkish: Marmara Denizi, Greek: Θάλασσα του Μαρμαρά) with the Black Sea (Turkish: Karadeniz, Greek: Μαύρη Θάλασσα). It is 30 km long, with a maximum width of 3,700 metres at the northern entrance, and a minimum width of 750 metres between Anadoluhisarı and Rumelihisarı. The depth varies from 36 to 124 metres in midstream. Black Sea The shores of the strait are heavily populated as the city of Istanbul (population at least 11 million) straddles it. Two bridges cross the Bosporus Strait. The first, Bogazici (Bosporus I) bridge, is 1074 meters long and was completed in 1973. The second, Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Bosporus II) bridge, is 1090 meters long, and was completed in 1988 about five kilometers north of the first bridge. Marmaray, a 13.7 kilometer-long rail tunnel is under construction and expected to be completed in 2008. Approximately 1,400 metres of the tunnel will run under the strait, at a depth of about 55 meters.

Associations

The name, meaning ox passage, is associated with a Greek myth about Io's travels after Zeus turned her into an ox for her protection. It is also said in myth that floating rocks once crushed any ship that attempted passage of the Bosporus until the hero Jason obtained passage by trickery, whereupon the rocks became fixed, and Greek access to the Black Sea was opened.

History

The Bosporus formed about 5600 BC when the rising waters of the Mediterranean/Sea of Marmara breached through to the Black Sea, which at the time was a low-lying body of fresh water. Some have argued that the resulting massive flooding of the inhabited and probably farmed northern shores of the Black Sea is the historic basis for the flood stories in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible. (See Black Sea deluge theory.) As the narrowest point of passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Bosporus has always been of great commercial and strategic importance. The Greek city-state of Athens in the fifth century BC, which was dependent on grain imports from Scythia, therefore maintained critical alliances with cities which controlled the straits, such as the Megarian colony Byzantium. The strategic significance of the strait was one of the factors in the decision of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to found there in 330 AD his new capital, Constantinople. This city was in 1453 to become the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and as they closed in on the Byzantine city the Ottomans constructed a fortification on each side of the strait, Anadoluhisari (1393) and Rumelihisari (1451). The strategic importance of the Bosporus remains high, and control over it has been an objective of a number of hostilities in modern history, notably the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878, as well as of the attack of the Allied Powers on the Dardanelles in 1915 in the course of the First World War. Several international treaties have governed vessels using the waters, including the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits, signed in 1936. Category:Straits of Asia Category:Straits of Europe Category:Geography of Turkey ko:보스포루스 해협 ja:ボスポラス海峡

Golden Horn

The Golden Horn (in Turkish Haliç, in Greek Khrysokeras or Chrysoceras or Χρυσοκερας) is an estuary dividing the city of Istanbul. With the Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn forms a peninsula with a deep natural harbor. This site was originally settled by ancient Greek colonists as the city of Byzantium. The Byzantine Empire had its naval headquarters there, and walls were built along the shoreline to protect the city (by then renamed Constantinople) from naval attacks. At the entrance to the Horn, there was a large boom pulled across from Constantinople to the tower of Galata (a.k.a. Tower of Christ in older texts) on the northern side, preventing unwanted ships from entering. There were three notable times when the chain across the Horn was either broken or circumvented. In the 10th century the Vikings (Varangians) dragged their longships out of the Bosporus, around Galata, and relaunched them in the Horn; the Byzantines defeated them with Greek fire. In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Venetian ships were able to break the chain with a ram. In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, having failed in his attempt to copy the Venetians and break the chain with brute force (indeed, heavily damaging his own ships in the process), instead copied the tactics of the Rus', towing his ships across Galata into the estuary over greased logs. In 1502 Leonardo da Vinci produced a drawing of a single span 720-foot (240 m) bridge as part of a civil engineering project for Sultan Beyazid II. The bridge was intended to span the Golden Horn. It was never built, but Leonardo's vision was resurrected in 2001 when a smaller bridge based on his design was constructed in Norway. After the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed, Greek citizens, the Greek Orthodox Church, Jews, Italian merchants, and other non-Muslims began to live along the Horn in the Phanar (Fener) and Balat districts. Today the Golden Horn is settled on both sides, and there are parks along each shore. The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce is also located along the shore, as is a Muslim cemetery. The Galata Bridge, built in 1836, connects Old Istanbul with the districts of Galata and Eminönü. Two other bridges, the Atatürk Bridge and the Haliç Bridge, are located further up the Horn. Until the 1980s the Horn was a dumping ground for industrial waste, but has since been cleaned up and is a popular tourist attraction in Istanbul because of its history and beauty. Category:Geography of Turkey Category:Byzantine Empire Category:Estuaries ja:金角湾

Europe

:This article is about the continent. For other meanings, see Europe (disambiguation). Europe is geologically and geographically a peninsula or subcontinent, forming the westernmost part of Eurasia. It is conventionally considered a continent, which, in this case, is more of a cultural distinction than a geographic one. It is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean and to the south by the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Caucasus. Europe's boundary to the east is vague, but has traditionally been given as the Ural Mountains and Caspian Sea to the southeast: the Urals are considered by most to be a geographical and tectonic landmark separating Asia from Europe. :See also Continent, Bicontinental country, and Table of European territories and regions. Table of European territories and regions Table of European territories and regions Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering around 10,790,000 km² (4,170,000 sq mi) or 2.1% of the Earth's surface, and is only larger than Australia. In terms of population, it is the third-largest continent (Asia and Africa are larger) with a population of more than 700,000,000, or about 11% of the world's population.

Etymology

Africa.]] In Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in bull form and taken to the island of Crete, where she gave birth to Minos. For Homer, Europé (Greek: Ευρωπη; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later Europa stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north. The Greek term Europe has been derived from Greek words meaning broad (eurys) and face (ops) -- broad having been an epitheton of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion; see Prithvi (Plataia). A minority, however, suggest this Greek popular etymology is really based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "sunset" (see also Erebus). From the Middle Eastern vantagepoint, the sun does set over Europe, the lands to the west. Likewise, Asia is sometimes thought to have derived from the Akkadian word asu, meaning "sunrise", and is the land to the east from a Mesopotamian perspective.

History

Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement, starting as far back as the Palaeolithic, although this is true for the rest of the Old World

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