The Middle East and Central Asian countries are located on a large part of the Asian continent that extends from the Mediterranean Sea in the East to China in the West, and reaches from Russia in the North to the Indian Subcontinent in the South.
The Middle East is birthplace to the worlds 3 monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The most predominant of these religions is Islam which also practiced by a majority of Central Asians. Buddhism is also practiced in parts of Central Asia.
The country of Iraq is the place where the first known civilization came about in a city-state called Sumer. Now, people in Iraq and most of the Middle East speak Arabic. It is the most predominant language in the Middle East. In Turkey, however, people speak Turkish. It is also notable that many Central Asian countries speak languages related to Turkish. In Iran, the language of the people is known as Farsi or Persian. In Armenia, people speak Armenian. In Israel, Hebrew is the official language. There are many other local languages and Russian is a very common language spoken in Central Asia because those countries were part of the former Soviet Union for almost 70 years. The Middle East and Central Asia are areas of tremendous cultural diversity.
Frontier STEM High School has many students and staff whose culture originates in both the Middle East and Central Asia. This month we will highlight those in our school and some contributions others from those cultures have made to the world.