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How Ancient Arabic Books Help Understand Today’s Weird Climate Change Posted by Hichem on Mar 1, 2012
Who would have anticipated that كُتُبٌ عَرَبِيَّــــــــــة قَدِيــــــــــمة (old Arabic books), far from being “woefully outdated”, would maintain a thriving relevance for several centuries to come, and help humanity understand a world beyond the time and place they were written in—Our world today? Three days ago, the UK’s Daily Mail published an article citing an academic…
Arabic in Outer Space (Part 2) Posted by Hichem on Feb 27, 2012
It can be funny to see that if you randomly ask young people in the Arab world today: — “What is الثُريَّـــــــــــا (al-Thuraya)?” They would almost all answer you that it is the name of a major telephone company, if not simply a chandelier, or a ceiling light hanging above our heads at home in the…
Arabic in the Sky: Top 200+ Astronomical Words of Arabic Origin Posted by Hichem on Feb 22, 2012
In fact, most of the astronomical terms referring to stars today come from Arabic, while others are Greek, and some remain of origin unknown. Some of the very old star names originated with people who dwelled in شبه الجزيـــــــــرة العربيــــــــة (the Arabian Peninsula) several thousand years ago. But then, with the spread of Islam, many…
Top 50+ English Words—of Arabic Origin! Posted by Hichem on Feb 21, 2012
Did you know that words like Adobe and Safari are actually Arabic? Of course, you already knew of the existence of so-called “loanwords” in English, meaning words which are originally French, German, Spanish, etc. But were you actually aware that several of them also come from ARABIC? IN SCIENCE AND MATH: ALCHEMY and CHEMISTRY (الكيميـــــــــاء.) ALCOHOL (الكُحُـــــــــول.) ALGEBRA…
Ibn Fadlān: Meet a World-Class International Arab Man of Mystery Posted by Hichem on Jan 27, 2012
Way before the world had the pleasure of being introduced to Google Earth, the iPhone, Wikipedia, the GPS, and other technological niceties, people’s best shot at learning about far away nations was through the dispatch of intrepid explorers, who would then pave the way to diplomatic special envoys, ultimately followed by full-fledged ambassadors. Today, you’ll be…