experiment in difficult filching: Arabic lesson, vocabulary of anatomy

Highly sylized Arabic letters © copyright 1993 by Mamoun Sakkal.

Hmmm the site/blog salambazar seems to be the artist who created one of the lovely, colorful Eid Mubarak Arabic calligraphy images Vleeptron filched ("Eid Greetings" at the bottom).

Elsewhere on his/her/its/their blog(s) Vleeptron filches this very nice way to start to attempt to learn some Arabic. The Web is rich in Arabic lessons, many of which have clickable letters and words which will pronounce themselves for you.

The equivalent of the Roman alphabet is called the alefba in Arabic and Farsi (Persian). I've found at least one alefba site where you can just look at the big letters and listen to a man's voice pronounce them over and over again until it starts to sink in.

I learned Hebrew/Ivrit, Arabic's near-twin Semitic lingo, when I was a kid. Like, how hard can this be?

Hebrew had died as an everyday spoken language by Jesus' time, so Jesus spoke the Syriac language Aramaic, thought long dead, but which still survives in one little mountain town in Syria. Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" (featured prominently on a very rowdy and disrespectful "South Park" episode) has the distinction of being the only mass-audience big-budget movie ever made entirely in Latin and Aramaic. But with subtitles.

The Arabic alefba descends from the Aramaic alefba.

Oh oh I forgot: You read the Arabic from right to left, like Hebrew.

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October 04, 2006
Vocabulary Series I: The Human Body

After a long pause, the Arabic Class notes blog is alive again. This time, we're starting with a Vocabulary series to present a few words of Arabic everyday. I will try and give examples of usage as much as possible. If you are intereseted in learning about certain aspects of the language more, please send us an email at webmaster@ sarnia-muslims.com (no spaces). Additionally, I'll start posting occasional podcasts (audio) of the Arabic class as time permits.



رَأس Head
يَد Hand
قَدَم Foot

وَجْه Face
جَبِين Forehead
شَعْر Hair
أنْف Nose
أُذُن Ear
سِن Tooth
عَيْن Eye
صَدْر Chest
قَلْب Heart
اصْبَع Finger
لِسَان Tongue
شَفَتَيْن Lips
خَلْف Back
بَطَن Tummy
معدة Stomach