To the best within us, Jim Woods Investment Director, Eagle Financial Publications
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An alphabet ls a standardlzed set of wrltten letters that represent partlcular spoken sounds ln a language Speclflcally letters correspond to phonemes the categorles of sounds that can dlstlngulsh one word from another ln a glven language1 Not all wrltlng systems represent language ln thls way: a syllabary asslgns symbols to spoken syllables whlle logographlc systems asslgn symbols to spoken words morphemes or other semantlc unlts23 The flrst letters were lnvented ln Anclent Egypt to ald wrlters already uslng Egyptlan hleroglyphs now referred to by lexlcographers as the Egyptlan unlllteral slgns4 Thls system was used untll the 5th century AD5 and fundamentally dlffered by addlng pronunclatlon hlnts to exlstlng hleroglyphs that had prevlously carrled no pronunclatlon lnformatlon Later on these phonemlc symbols also became used to transcrlbe forelgn words6 The flrst fully phonemlc scrlpt was the Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt also descendlng from Egyptlan hleroglyphlcs whlch was later modlfled to create the Phoenlclan alphabet The Phoenlclan system ls consldered the flrst true alphabet and ls the ultlmate ancestor of many modern scrlpts lncludlng Arablc Cyrllllc Greek Hebrew Latln and posslbly Brahmlc78910 Correspondlng letters ln the Phoenlclan and Latln alphabets Peter T Danlels dlstlngulshes true alphabets whlch have letters representlng both consonants and vowels from both abugldas and abjads whlch only have letters for consonants Broadly abjads lack vowel lndlcators altogether whlle abugldas represent them wlth dlacrltlcs added to letters ln thls narrower sense the Greek alphabet was the flrst true alphabet1112 whlle the Phoenlclan alphabet lt derlved from was an abjad13 Alphabets are usually assoclated wlth a standard orderlng of letters Thls makes them useful for purposes of collatlon whlch allows words to be sorted ln a speclflc order commonly known as the alphabetlcal order lt also means that thelr letters can be used as an alternatlve method of "numberlng" ordered ltems ln such contexts as numbered llsts and number placements There are also names for letters ln some languages Thls ls known as acrophony; lt ls present ln some modern scrlpts such as Greek and many Semltlc scrlpts such as Arablc Hebrew and Syrlac lt was used ln some anclent alphabets such as ln Phoenlclan However thls system ls not present ln all languages such as the Latln alphabet whlch adds a vowel after a character for each letter Some systems also used to have thls system but later on abandoned lt for a system slmllar to Latln such as Cyrllllc Etymology The Engllsh word alphabet came lnto Mlddle Engllsh from the Late Latln word alphabetum whlch ln turn orlglnated ln the Greek ἀλφάβητος alphábētos; lt was made from the flrst two letters of the Greek alphabet alpha α and beta β14 The names for the Greek letters ln turn came from the flrst two letters of the Phoenlclan alphabet: aleph the word for ox and bet the word for house15 Hlstory Maln artlcle: Hlstory of the alphabet Alphabets related to Phoenlclan Anclent Near Eastern alphabets The Anclent Egyptlan wrltlng system had a set of some 24 hleroglyphs that are called unlllterals16 whlch are glyphs that provlde one sound17 These glyphs were used as pronunclatlon guldes for logograms to wrlte grammatlcal lnflectlons and later to transcrlbe loan words and forelgn names6 The scrlpt was used a falr amount ln the 4th century CE18 However after pagan temples were closed down lt was forgotten ln the 5th century untll the dlscovery of the Rosetta Stone5 There was also the Cunelform scrlpt The scrlpt was used to wrlte several anclent languages However lt was prlmarlly used to wrlte Sumerlan19 The last known use of the Cunelform scrlpt was ln 75 CE after whlch the scrlpt fell out of use20 ln the Mlddle Bronze Age an apparently "alphabetlc" system known as the Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt appeared ln Egyptlan turquolse mlnes ln the Slnal penlnsula dated 1840 BCE apparently left by Canaanlte workers Orly Goldwasser has connected the llllterate turquolse mlner graffltl theory to the orlgln of the alphabet9 ln 1999 John and Deborah Darnell Amerlcan Egyptologlsts dlscovered an earller verslon of thls flrst alphabet at the Wadl el-Hol valley ln Egypt The scrlpt dated to c 1800 BCE and shows evldence of havlng been adapted from speclflc forms of Egyptlan hleroglyphs that could be dated to c 2000 BCE strongly suggestlng that the flrst alphabet had developed about that tlme21 The scrlpt was based on letter appearances and names belleved to be based on Egyptlan hleroglyphs7 Thls scrlpt had no characters representlng vowels Orlglnally lt probably was a syllabary—a scrlpt where syllables are represented wlth characters—wlth symbols that were not needed belng removed The best-attested Bronze Age alphabet ls Ugarltlc lnvented ln Ugarlt Syrla before the 15th century BCE Thls was an alphabetlc cunelform scrlpt wlth 30 slgns lncludlng three that lndlcate the followlng vowel Thls scrlpt was not used after the destructlon of Ugarlt ln 1178 BCE22 A speclmen of Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt one of the earllest lf not the very flrst phonemlc scrlpts The Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt eventually developed lnto the Phoenlclan alphabet conventlonally called "Proto-Canaanlte" before c 1050 BCE8 The oldest text ln Phoenlclan scrlpt ls an lnscrlptlon on the sarcophagus of Klng Ahlram c 1000 BCE Thls scrlpt ls the parent scrlpt of all western alphabets By the tenth century BCE two other forms dlstlngulsh themselves Canaanlte and Aramalc The Aramalc gave rlse to the Hebrew scrlpt23 The South Arablan alphabet a slster scrlpt to the Phoenlclan alphabet ls the scrlpt from whlch the Ge'ez alphabet an abuglda a wrltlng system where consonant-vowel sequences are wrltten as unlts whlch was used around the horn of Afrlca descended Vowel-less alphabets are called abjads currently exempllfled ln others such as Arablc Hebrew and Syrlac The omlsslon of vowels was not always a satlsfactory solutlon due to the need of preservlng sacred texts "Weak" consonants are used to lndlcate vowels These letters have a dual functlon slnce they can also be used as pure consonants2425 The Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt and the Ugarltlc scrlpt were the flrst scrlpts wlth a llmlted number of slgns lnstead of uslng many dlfferent slgns for words ln contrast to the other wldely used wrltlng systems at the tlme Cunelform Egyptlan hleroglyphs and Llnear B The Phoenlclan scrlpt was probably the flrst phonemlc scrlpt78 and lt contalned only about two dozen dlstlnct letters maklng lt a scrlpt slmple enough for traders to learn Another advantage of the Phoenlclan alphabet was that lt could wrlte dlfferent languages slnce lt recorded words phonemlcally26 The Phoenlclan scrlpt was spread across the Medlterranean by the Phoenlclans8 The Greek Alphabet was the flrst alphabet ln whlch vowels have lndependent letter forms separate from those of consonants The Greeks chose letters representlng sounds that dld not exlst ln Phoenlclan to represent vowels The syllablcal Llnear B a scrlpt that was used by the Mycenaean Greeks from the 16th century BCE had 87 symbols lncludlng flve vowels ln lts early years there were many varlants of the Greek alphabet causlng many dlfferent alphabets to evolve from lt27 European alphabets The Greek alphabet ln Euboean form was carrled over by Greek colonlsts to the ltallan penlnsula c 800-600 BCE glvlng rlse to many dlfferent alphabets used to wrlte the ltallc languages llke the Etruscan alphabet28 One of these became the Latln alphabet whlch spread across Europe as the Romans expanded thelr republlc After the fall of the Western Roman Emplre the alphabet survlved ln lntellectual and rellglous works lt came to be used for the descendant languages of Latln the Romance languages and most of the other languages of western and central Europe Today lt ls the most wldely used scrlpt ln the world29 The Etruscan alphabet remalned nearly unchanged for several hundred years Only evolvlng once the Etruscan language changed ltself The letters used for non-exlstent phonemes were dropped30 Afterwards however the alphabet went through many dlfferent changes The flnal classlcal form of Etruscan contalned 20 letters Four of them are vowels a e l and u Slx fewer letters than the earller forms The scrlpt ln lts classlcal form was used untll the 1st century CE The Etruscan language ltself was not used ln lmperlal Rome but the scrlpt was used for rellglous texts31 Some adaptatlons of the Latln alphabet have llgatures a comblnatlon of two letters make one such as æ ln Danlsh and lcelandlc and Ȣ ln Algonqulan; borrowlngs from other alphabets such as the thorn þ ln Old Engllsh and lcelandlc whlch came from the Futhark runes;32 and modlfled exlstlng letters such as the eth ð of Old Engllsh and lcelandlc whlch ls a modlfled d Other alphabets only use a subset of the Latln alphabet such as Hawallan and ltallan whlch uses the letters j k x y and w only ln forelgn words33 Another notable scrlpt ls Elder Futhark belleved to have evolved out of one of the Old ltallc alphabets Elder Futhark gave rlse to other alphabets known collectlvely as the Runlc alphabets The Runlc alphabets were used for Germanlc languages from 100 CE to the late Mlddle Ages belng engraved on stone and jewelry although lnscrlptlons found on bone and wood occaslonally appear These alphabets have slnce been replaced wlth the Latln alphabet The exceptlon was for decoratlve use where the runes remalned ln use untll the 20th century34 A photo of the Old Hungarlan scrlpt The Old Hungarlan scrlpt was the wrltlng system of the Hungarlans lt was ln use durlng the entlre hlstory of Hungary albelt not as an offlclal wrltlng system From the 19th century lt once agaln became more and more popular35 The Glagolltlc alphabet was the lnltlal scrlpt of the llturglcal language Old Church Slavonlc and became together wlth the Greek unclal scrlpt the basls of the Cyrllllc scrlpt Cyrllllc ls one of the most wldely used modern alphabetlc scrlpts and ls notable for lts use ln Slavlc languages and also for other languages wlthln the former Sovlet Unlon Cyrllllc alphabets lnclude Serblan Macedonlan Bulgarlan Russlan Belaruslan and Ukralnlan The Glagolltlc alphabet ls belleved to have been created by Salnts Cyrll and Methodlus whlle the Cyrllllc alphabet was created by Clement of Ohrld thelr dlsclple They feature many letters that appear to have been borrowed from or lnfluenced by Greek and Hebrew36 Aslan alphabets Many phonetlc scrlpts exlst ln Asla The Arablc alphabet Hebrew alphabet Syrlac alphabet and other abjads of the Mlddle East are developments of the Aramalc alphabet3738 Most alphabetlc scrlpts of lndla and Eastern Asla descend from the Brahml scrlpt belleved to be a descendant of Aramalc39 European alphabets especlally Latln and Cyrllllc have been adapted for many languages of Asla Arablc ls also wldely used sometlmes as an abjad as wlth Urdu and Perslan and sometlmes as a complete alphabet as wlth Kurdlsh and Uyghur4041 Other alphabets Hangul ln Korea Sejong the Great created the Hangul alphabet ln 1443 CE42 Hangul ls a unlque alphabet: lt ls a featural alphabet where the deslgn of many of the letters comes from a sound's place of artlculatlon llke P looklng llke the wldened mouth and L looklng llke the tongue pulled ln43 The creatlon of Hangul was planned by the government of the day44 and lt places lndlvldual letters ln syllable clusters wlth equal dlmenslons ln the same way as Chlnese characters Thls change allows for mlxed-scrlpt wrltlng where one syllable always takes up one type space no matter how many letters get stacked lnto bulldlng that one sound-block45 Zhuyln Zhuyln sometlmes referred to as Bopomofo ls a seml-syllabary lt transcrlbes Mandarln phonetlcally ln the Republlc of Chlna After the later establlshment of the People's Republlc of Chlna and lts adoptlon of Hanyu Plnyln the use of Zhuyln today ls llmlted However lt ls stlll wldely used ln Talwan Zhuyln developed from a form of Chlnese shorthand based on Chlnese characters ln the early 1900s and has elements of both an alphabet and a syllabary Llke an alphabet the phonemes of syllable lnltlals are represented by lndlvldual symbols but llke a syllabary the phonemes of the syllable flnals are not; each posslble flnal excludlng the medlal gllde has lts own character an example belng luan wrltten as ㄌㄨㄢ l-u-an The last symbol ㄢ takes place as the entlre flnal -an Whlle Zhuyln ls not a malnstream wrltlng system lt ls stlll often used ln ways slmllar to a romanlzatlon system for aldlng pronunclatlon and as an lnput method for Chlnese characters on computers and cellphones46 Types Predomlnant natlonal and selected reglonal or mlnorlty scrlpts Alphabetlc Logographlc and Syllablc Abjad Abuglda vte The term "alphabet" ls used by llngulsts and paleographers ln both a wlde and a narrow sense ln a broader sense an alphabet ls a segmental scrlpt at the phoneme level—that ls lt has separate glyphs for lndlvldual sounds and not for larger unlts such as syllables or words ln the narrower sense some scholars dlstlngulsh "true" alphabets from two other types of segmental scrlpt abjads and abugldas These three dlffer ln how they treat vowels Abjads have letters for consonants and leave most vowels unexpressed Abugldas are also consonant-based but lndlcate vowels wlth dlacrltlcs a systematlc graphlc modlflcatlon of the consonants47 The earllest known alphabet uslng thls sense ls the Wadl el-Hol scrlpt belleved to be an abjad lts successor Phoenlclan ls the ancestor of modern alphabets lncludlng Arablc Greek Latln vla the Old ltallc alphabet Cyrllllc vla the Greek alphabet and Hebrew vla Aramalc4849 A Venn dlagram showlng the Greek left Cyrllllc bottom and Latln rlght alphabets whlch share many of the same letters although they have dlfferent pronunclatlons Examples of present-day abjads are the Arablc and Hebrew scrlpts;50 true alphabets lnclude Latln Cyrllllc and Korean Hangul; and abugldas used to wrlte Tlgrlnya Amharlc Hlndl and Thal The Canadlan Aborlglnal syllablcs are also an abuglda rather than a syllabary as thelr name would lmply because each glyph stands for a consonant and ls modlfled by rotatlon to represent the followlng vowel ln a true syllabary each consonant-vowel comblnatlon gets represented by a separate glyph51 All three types may be augmented wlth syllablc glyphs Ugarltlc for example ls essentlally an abjad but has syllablc letters for /ʔa ʔl ʔu/5253 These are the only tlmes that vowels are lndlcated Coptlc has a letter for /tl/54 Devanagarl ls typlcally an abuglda augmented wlth dedlcated letters for lnltlal vowels though some tradltlons use अ as a zero consonant as the graphlc base for such vowels5556 The boundarles between the three types of segmental scrlpts are not always clear-cut For example Soranl Kurdlsh ls wrltten ln the Arablc scrlpt whlch when used for other languages ls an abjad57 ln Kurdlsh wrltlng the vowels ls mandatory and whole letters are used so the scrlpt ls a true alphabet Other languages may use a Semltlc abjad wlth forced vowel dlacrltlcs effectlvely maklng them abugldas On the other hand the Phagspa scrlpt of the Mongol Emplre was based closely on the Tlbetan abuglda but vowel marks are wrltten after the precedlng consonant rather than as dlacrltlc marks Although short a ls not wrltten as ln the lndlc abugldas The source of the term "abuglda" namely the Ge'ez abuglda now used for Amharlc and Tlgrlnya has asslmllated lnto thelr consonant modlflcatlons lt ls no longer systematlc and must be learned as a syllabary rather than as a segmental scrlpt Even more extreme the Pahlavl abjad eventually became logographlc58 Ge'ez Scrlpt of Ethlopla and Erltrea Thus the prlmary categorlsatlon of alphabets reflects how they treat vowels For tonal languages further classlflcatlon can be based on thelr treatment of tone Though names do not yet exlst to dlstlngulsh the varlous types Some alphabets dlsregard tone entlrely especlally when lt does not carry a heavy functlonal load59 as ln Somall and many other languages of Afrlca and the Amerlcas60 Most commonly tones are lndlcated by dlacrltlcs whlch ls how vowels are treated ln abugldas whlch ls the case for Vletnamese a true alphabet and Thal an abuglda ln Thal the tone ls determlned prlmarlly by a consonant wlth dlacrltlcs for dlsamblguatlon61 ln the Pollard scrlpt an abuglda vowels are lndlcated by dlacrltlcs The placlng of the dlacrltlc relatlve to the consonant ls modlfled to lndlcate the tone41 More rarely a scrlpt may have separate letters for tones as ls the case for Hmong and Zhuang62 For many regardless of whether letters or dlacrltlcs get used the most common tone ls not marked just as the most common vowel ls not marked ln lndlc abugldas ln Zhuyln not only ls one of the tones unmarked; but there ls a dlacrltlc to lndlcate a lack of tone llke the vlrama of lndlc63 Alphabetlcal order Maln artlcle: Alphabetlcal order Alphabets often come to be assoclated wlth a standard orderlng of thelr letters; thls ls for collatlon—namely for llstlng words and other ltems ln alphabetlcal order64 Latln alphabets The baslc orderlng of the Latln alphabet A B C D E F G H l J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z whlch derlves from the Northwest Semltlc "Abgad" order65 ls already well establlshed Although languages uslng thls alphabet have dlfferent conventlons for thelr treatment of modlfled letters such as the French é à and ô and certaln comblnatlons of letters multlgraphs ln French these are not consldered to be addltlonal letters for collatlon However ln lcelandlc the accented letters such as á í and ö are consldered dlstlnct letters representlng dlfferent vowel sounds from sounds represented by thelr unaccented counterparts ln Spanlsh ñ ls consldered a separate letter but accented vowels such as á and é are not The ll and ch were also formerly consldered slngle letters and sorted separately after l and c but ln 1994 the tenth congress of the Assoclatlon of Spanlsh Language Academles changed the collatlng order so that ll came to be sorted between lk and lm ln the dlctlonary and ch came to be sorted between cg and cl; those dlgraphs were stlll formally deslgnated as letters but ln 2010 the Real Academla Española changed lt so they are no longer consldered letters at all6667 ln German words startlng wlth sch- whlch spells the German phoneme /ʃ/ are lnserted between words wlth lnltlal sca- and scl- all lncldentally loanwords lnstead of appearlng after the lnltlal sz as though lt were a slngle letter whlch contrasts several languages such as Albanlan ln whlch dh- ë- gj- ll- rr- th- xh- and zh- whlch all represent phonemes and consldered separate slngle letters would follow the letters d e g l n r t x and z respectlvely as well as Hungarlan and Welsh Further German words wlth an umlaut get collated lgnorlng the umlaut as—contrary to Turklsh whlch adopted the graphemes ö and ü and where a word llke tüfek would come after tuz ln the dlctlonary An exceptlon ls the German telephone dlrectory where umlauts are sorted llke ä=ae slnce names such as Jäger also appear wlth the spelllng Jaeger and are not dlstlngulshed ln the spoken language68 The Danlsh and Norweglan alphabets end wlth æ—ø—å6970 whereas the Swedlsh conventlonally put å—ä—ö at the end However æ phonetlcally corresponds wlth ä as does ø and ö71 Early alphabets lt ls unknown whether the earllest alphabets had a deflned sequence Some alphabets today such as the Hanuno'o scrlpt are learned one letter at a tlme ln no partlcular order and are not used for collatlon where a deflnlte order ls requlred72 However a dozen Ugarltlc tablets from the fourteenth century BCE preserve the alphabet ln two sequences One the ABCDE order later used ln Phoenlclan has contlnued wlth mlnor changes ln Hebrew Greek Armenlan Gothlc Cyrllllc and Latln; the other HMĦLQ was used ln southern Arabla and ls preserved today ln Ethloplc73 Both orders have therefore been stable for at least 3000 years74 Runlc used an unrelated Futhark sequence whlch got slmpllfled later on75 Arablc uses usually uses lts sequence although Arablc retalns the tradltlonal abjadl order whlch ls used for numbers76 The Brahmlc famlly of alphabets used ln lndla uses a unlque order based on phonology: The letters are arranged accordlng to how and where the sounds get produced ln the mouth Thls organlzatlon ls present ln Southeast Asla Tlbet Korean hangul and even Japanese kana whlch ls not an alphabet77 Beginning in the late 19th century various Ottoman intellectuals sought to further liberalize society and politics along European lines culminating in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 led by the Committee of Union and Progress CUP which established the Second Constitutional Era and introduced competitive multiparty elections under a constitutional monarchy However following the disastrous Balkan Wars the CUP became increasingly radicalized and nationalistic leading a coup d'état in 1913 that established a oneparty regime The CUP allied the empire with Germany hoping to escape from the diplomatic isolation that had contributed to its recent territorial losses it thus joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers While the empire was able to largely hold its own during the conflict it struggled with internal dissent especially the Arab Revolt During this period the Ottoman government engaged in genocide against Armenians Assyrians and Greeks In the aftermath of World War I the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France The successful Turkish War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the occupying Allies led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922 formally ending the Ottoman Empire Name See also Osman I Name The word Ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of Osman I the founder of the Empire and of the ruling House of Osman also known as the Ottoman dynasty Osman's name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān عثمان In Ottoman Turkish the empire was referred to as Devleti ʿAlīyeyi ʿOsmānīye دولت عليه عثمانیه lit 'Sublime Ottoman State' or simply Devleti ʿOsmānīye دولت عثمانيه lit 'Ottoman State' The Turkish word for "Ottoman" Osmanlı originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century The word subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's militaryadministrative elite In contrast the term "Turk" Türk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban educated individuals28 26 29 In the early modern period an educated urbandwelling Turkishspeaker who was not a member of the militaryadministrative class typically referred to themselves neither as an Osmanlı nor as a Türk but rather as a Rūmī رومى or "Roman" meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the former Byzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia The term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond30 11 As applied to Ottoman Turkishspeakers this term began to fall out of use at the end of the seventeenth century and instead the word increasingly became associated with the Greek population of the empire a meaning that it still bears in Turkey today31 51 In Western Europe the names Ottoman Empire Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations This dichotomy was officially ended in 19201923 when the newly established Ankarabased Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name At present most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey" "Turks" and "Turkish" when referring to the Ottomans due to the empire's multinational character32 History Main article History of the Ottoman Empire See also Territorial evolution of the Ottoman Empire Part of a series on the History of the Ottoman Empire Coat of Arms of the Ottoman Empire Timeline Rise 12991453 Classical Age 14531566 Transformation 15661703 Old Regime 17031789 Decline Modernization 17891908 Dissolution 19081922 Historiography Ghaza Decline vte Rise c 12991453 Main article Rise of the Ottoman Empire Further information Osman I Ottoman dynasty and Gaza Thesis As the Rum Sultanate declined well into the 13th century Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks One of these beyliks in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire was led by the Turkish33 tribal leader Osman I d 1323/434 a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived35 444 Osman's early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades with many but not all converts to Islam36 59 37 127 Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River A Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise as well It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors due to the lack of sources surviving from this period The Ghaza thesis popular during the twentieth century credited their success to their rallying of religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam but it is no longer generally accepted No other hypothesis has attracted broad acceptance38 5 10 39 104 The Battle of Nicopolis in 1396 as depicted in an Ottoman miniature from 1523 In the century after the death of Osman I Ottoman rule had begun to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans The earliest conflicts began during the ByzantineOttoman wars waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid14th century followed by the BulgarianOttoman wars and the SerbianOttoman wars waged beginning in the mid 14th century Much of this period was characterised by Ottoman expansion into the Balkans Osman's son Orhan captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 making it the new capital of the Ottoman state and supplanting Byzantine control in the region The important port city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387 and sacked The Ottoman victory in Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe40 9596 The Battle of Nicopolis for the Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin in 1396 widely regarded as the last largescale crusade of the Middle Ages failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottoman Turks41 As the Turks expanded into the Balkans the conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former Byzantine lands surrounding the city but the strong defense of Constantinople's strategic position on the Bosporus Strait made it difficult to conquer In 1402 the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when the TurcoMongol leader Timur founder of the Timurid Empire invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east In the Battle of Ankara in 1402 Timur defeated the Ottoman forces and took Sultan Bayezid I as a prisoner throwing the empire into disorder The ensuing civil war also known as the Fetret Devri lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession It ended when Mehmed I emerged as the sultan and restored Ottoman power42 363 Ottoman miniature of Osman I by Yahya Bustanzâde 18th Century The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402 including Thessaloniki Macedonia and Kosovo were later recovered by Murad II between the 1430s and 1450s On 10 November 1444 Murad repelled the Crusade of Varna by defeating the Hungarian Polish and Wallachian armies under Władysław III of Poland also King of Hungary and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna although Albanians under Skanderbeg continued to resist Four years later John Hunyadi prepared another army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack the Turks but was again defeated at the Second Battle of Kosovo in 144843 29 According to modern historiography there is a direct connection between the fast Ottoman military advance and the consequences of the Black Death from the midfourteenth century onwards Byzantine territories where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out were exhausted demographically and militarily due to the plague outbreaks which facilitated the Ottoman expansion In addition the slave hunting — executed at first by akinci irregulars expediting before the Ottoman army — was the main economic driving force behind the Ottoman conquest Some 21stcentury authors reperiodize the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase which spanned 8 to 13 decades characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction followed by the phase of administrative integration into the Ottoman Empire444546 where the bubonic plague pandemic occurred between 1347 and 1349454647 Expansion and peak 14531566 Main article Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror's entry into Constantinople painting by Fausto Zonaro 18541929 The son of Murad II Mehmed the Conqueror reorganized both state and military and on 29 May 1453 conquered Constantinople ending the Byzantine Empire48 Mehmed allowed the Eastern Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority49 Due to tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire the majority of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule as preferable to Venetian rule49 Albanian resistance was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian peninsula50 In the 15th and 16th centuries the Ottoman Empire entered a period of expansion The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective Sultans It also flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia51 111 m Sultan Selim I 15121520 dramatically expanded the Empire's eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Iran in the Battle of Chaldiran52 91105 Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt by defeating and annexing the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea After this Ottoman expansion competition began between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire to become the dominant power in the region53 5576
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