Romanization of Arabic

a different way from us. John McWhorter in his interview on the podcast "The Shifting Meanings of Our Evolving Modern Language," comments on this and explains that a word is not something that is, but rather a process. An inevitable process of morphing. He says: "language is something that always change. It is not that it will change in a way that it will have new words for new things, and new words coming from other language only. But, even the boring vanilla part of the language is always morphing." Some old words have a different meaning now. In addition, new words came to use and became part of our everyday 's words like (tweeting, googling, selfie and many others) and there will always be new words coming up. In my native language, Arabic, there is the informal language that is spoken and the formal language that is used in writing and in formal speeches. The slang language and the formal language are quite different, almost two distinct languages and no one use the formal version to speak. When you read a poem that is one hundred years old, you find a hard time understanding the language and you see clearly how it is different than the modern language. Same is for the slang language which I feel is morphing even more rapidly. For example, every while my siblings and I use words that are new and prevailing in our generation. At the beginning these words make no sense for my parents, but, after a while, they become familiar with them and even, sometimes, they start using…

to unite Muslims because everyone must learn the Arabic language to participate in prayers and recitations. Introduction Islamic calligraphy is considered to have developed into an art during the time of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth caliph and the son-in-law of Muhammad (Schimmel, Islamic 3). Not only a religious leader, Ali ibn Abi Talib was a great calligrapher and artist. The use and importance of Islamic calligraphy grew rapidly after his extensive development of the art. Muslims…

The Islamic religion seems to always come up when women’s rights are discussed. It is used to sometimes justify why the Middle East has some of the lowest countries on the gender index gap. Is it possible for Women to have equal rights in these Muslim societies? This has been debated among scholars for many years. In general, Sharia leaves room for Women’s rights in almost every aspect. However, some areas have used interpretations to justify their male-dominating patriarchal societies. These…

In life there is one thing that remains constant and that is change. This commonly used phrase is a way to describe the evolution of women all over the world. For years women have been responsible for bearing children, taking care of their households, and their husbands. Women in certain regions have overcome these circumstances, which has caused many to pursue a career or even a higher education. Unfortunately, women in the Middle East did not fully overcome of being secluded to one particular…

Ancient civilization is full of many different stories and different ways of living. The ancient civilizations that we have studied such as Ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Eqypt, and ancient Greece are all very unique in their own ways but the greatest one in my opinion would be Ancient Egypt. I chose ancient Egypt for various reasons. The most obvious reasons would be that the Egyptians did not have to be sent off on their own at a young age to learn how to survive and learn how to go to war like…

Saudi Arabia people respect who is talkative and have bold personality. It’s part of our culture, that people know my personality by my way of speaking to them. As I am known in Saudi Arabia that I have a strong personality because of my way of speaking Arabic. I didn’t know that my personality will change in different language. Communication is so important in our life, and the only value to communicate is speaking. As I said that I am talkative and have the good sense to choose interesting…

small chapel in Goodenough College based on my own exploration. The emphasis of the essay is mainly on descriptive analysis rather than presenting a narrow angle of positioning. It also explains the challenges encountered in the way the observation to collect the information was conducted. I was reading a book sitting in a front desk of the little Middle East. Suddenly I heard someone talking in a loud sound saying “selet al-isha ya Welid”? I realised the voice was coming from outside dictating…

Muslims believe that while Allah speaks to practicing Muslims through the Quran, salaah is the method in which Muslims use to respond to Allah. During the prayer, while standing, the congregates would raise their hands up to their shoulders and would say “Allah Akbar” which translated to, “Allah is the greatest.” Following this motion, the congregates would bend down and repeat, “Allah Akbar” with their back and neck straight and leveled with the ground in a 90 degree angle. While in this…

Gum arabic was exported as early the 17th century BC (Whistler and BeMiller, 1993) and is exported today making it a multi-billion-dollar industry to date. It was used by Egyptians for mineral pigments and used in the flaxen wrappings to preserve mummies (Whistler and BeMiller, 1993). In modern times especially between early 50s to the late 90s, Sudan was the main source of gum arabic with the Kordofan province of Sudan which produces over 90% of the world’s supply (Joseleau and Ullmann, 1990)…

While no evidence exists demonstrating that Sinuhe from The Story of Sinuhe is an actual person and while The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant is clearly fiction, both works of Egyptian literature are rooted in some form of historical fact in that they were likely written by Egyptian elite and, therefore, they can give us important insights into Egyptian social life, how Egyptians viewed their society and the greater world, and how different classes in Egypt might have interacted. Namely, both…