طحينة and كسكس

[cosmolinguist]

I'm never going to learn enough Arabic to actually function, but it was damn cool that when I went to the Asian supermarket at the bottom of my road today I bought two things whose Arabic names I could read on the labels (couscous and tahini*).

*apparently its "tahina" in Arabic!

Comments

[belleweather]

I still love doing this when I'm shopping. :)

[jesse_the_k]

That's nifty!

I've always admired Arabic script, and it seems fundamentally beyond me, so ::heart eyes::

[cosmolinguist]

I thought it'd be beyond me, too (and was even a little worried about being able to physically see the differences). But our teacher confidently told us in the first class we'd know the whole alphabet in six weeks, I was dubious, but I did!

[strange_complex]

Very impressive! Obviously I know zero Arabic, but would I be right in guessing that of the two words in your heading, the one on the right is 'couscous', because I can see most of it consists of the same pattern two times? So by elimination, the other one would be tahini/a?

[cosmolinguist]

You would be exactly right. :) It's exactly the same pattern (Arabic doesn't always write its vowels, and this written word just happens to be the letters most like 'k' and 's', repeated twice).

[strange_complex]

Yay! *is proud*

[miss_s_b]

That is very cool

[barakta]

:D

Sometimes we'll never be fluent, but knowing bits gives us glimpses into other cultures and worlds.

[mummimamma]

But food is the most important knowledge of every language! So clearly you are well on your way.