Every crop is planted with the goal of maximum density: Wheat is drill-seeded in crowded blocks. Wine grapes hang on trellises hundreds of feet long. Hops climb wires held 15–20’ high by tall pols. Peppermint, purple-stemmed and glossy-leafed, is packed into wide files. Sunflowers stand shoulder to shoulder. Hazelnut orchards are as precisely laid out as military cemeteries. Close rows of Christmas tree march up the slopes where the soil is rockier. Nurseries raise hundreds of species of landscaping plants in thousands of plastic pots set out in the sun, under shade cloth, or in hoop-houses. Animal agriculture is also here, and a few pastures hold cows, goats or sheep, being raised for meat, milk or fiber, and some long sheds cruelly confine chickens and pigs. The feed grain for these unhappy creatures is imported from other regions.
The Sociolinguistic Landscape of Palestine in Transit: Jewish Language Shift from Hebrew to Aramaic in Antiquity
Throughout history, various conquests of foreign lands have shaped the linguistic makeup of the world through centuries of acculturation. The rate of acculturation has…