جون ٣:١٦

فور جود سو لوفد ث وورلد ذات هي جاف هيس اونلي بجت سن ، ذات وحفر بيلييفيس إن هم شال نت بريش، بيوت هاف يفيرلاستينج ليف .

جون ٣:١٦

No, my blog didn't get hiijacked by anybody (not even Michael again *smile*). The above writing is John 3:16, in English, but in the Arabic script. I came across a book in the Junior Non-fiction section of the library that immediately intrigued me: Sugar comes from Arabic: A beginner's guide to Arabic letters and words. So I checked it out and started studying the Arabic alphabet! Arabic is not something I had a particular interest in before, but I really enjoy learning other languages and letters in general, and it is quite pretty. It's interesting, because you cannot transcribe it letter-for-letter with English. First of all, a lot of the vowels are not written. Pronounced, but not written. And then there is no corresponding letter for v, p, or g (you substitute f, b, and j). And then there are several Arabic letters that have no corresponding English letter: "strong S", "strong H", "strong T", and 3 other throat-noise letters. But I don't worry too much about those since I'm just writing English words. And going right-to-left isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

It's like learning a ready-made secret code! Now nobody can understand what I write in my margins, hehehe. ;)