Geographically, the Middle East can be thought of as Western Asia without the Caucasus but with Egypt, which is the non-Maghreb part of Northern Africa.
Since ancient times the Middle East has had several lingue franche: Akkadian ( 14th - 8th century BCE), Aramaic ( 8th century BCE - 8th century CE),[REF] Greek ( 4th century BCE - 8th century CE), and Arabic ( 8th century CE - present).