S is for Stars....of Several kinds

is for

Shukran gazeelan!

Probably the most well-known bit of Arabic among non-native speakers  - it means ‘thank you very much!’ The g can be pronounced either hard as in 'go' or as in 'jet' depending on the regional dialect. Whichever way you say it, you'll be understood.     

Singer Yousra El Hawary with El Soor - the Wall - a song about a wall built to keep out protesters during the Egyptian Revolution. One of the loveliest voices to come out of the Arab Spring.

More of her music at her own Site. 

Also, Samira Said, a Moroccan-Egyptian and a much awarded and successful singer, can't not mention her!

Stars 

Why do so many star names sound so abstruse? I mean, Achernar, Betelgeuse, Deneb Algedi, Rasalased, seriously? Where did these even come from? They don’t sound anything like Greek or Latin, the two languages on which most Western nomenclature is based. Well, star names don’t sound like Greek or Latin because they aren’t Greek or Latin, simple.  Those are actually, yup, you knew this was coming, didn't you? Arabic.

Betelgeuse derives from Ibt al Jauza or the Armpit of the Giant (the Giant being Orion) or more likely Yad al Jauza (the Hand of the Giant). How did Yad become Bet? That’s because a careless transcriber/translator missed a dot. The letter for B in Arabic is the exact same as Y, except that B has one dot below it, while Y has two.  Somewhere along the line someone misread or miswrote Y and B and voila - Betelgeuse! A case of Arabic whispers, only written not verbal. Achernar is Akhir an Nahr (End of the River in Arabic), Rasalased is from Ras al Assad (Head of the Lion) and so on.

The nomads named their visible stars in antiquity, no-one knows when exactly, maybe 2-3000 years ago.  These names themselves were built from the ancient legends and myths of Sumer, Babylon  and Mesopotamia. 

The Egyptian-Greek, Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 CE), lived in Alexandria and wrote three monumental works of importance (in Koine Greek) – one each on astronomy, astrology and geography.  In his treatise on astronomy called Almagest now (it went by a different, more complex moniker at the time of writing), he catalogued all the known stars, among other things. Ptolemy catalogued around 48 star constellations, it became the definitive text from which all astronomers worked for centuries after, though the original Greek version was lost, preserved only in translation.

The Almagest in due course was translated into Arabic. The star names from Almagest were converted to Arabic and some more of their own Arab names added, the ones handed down to them by their nomad ancestors, from the ancient civilisations of the Middle East.

Al Sufi, known in the west as Azophi (10th century), carried out extensive observations in Persia, in Yemen, in Iraq, and published the first critique to Ptolemy’s Almagest, which was by then many centuries old.  In it, he refined some of Ptolemy’s observations and also added his own.  This ground breaking book, in which the names of the stars were obviously in Arabic, was called Kitab Suwar al Kawakib al Thabitha (The Book of Fixed Stars) and went onto become a classic. Many of these Arabic star names were later on transmitted to Latin during the Middle Ages and down the years to modern times.








Courage, brother, do not Stumble
Though thy path be dark as night,
There's a Star to guide the humble,
Trust in God and do the right.
Let the road be rough and dreary
And it's end far out of Sight,
Foot it bravely; Strong or weary
Trust in God and do the right...

~ Norman Macleod, 1867

The Spirit always flags a bit by the time the A-Z gets into it's last third, and this time is no different. It becomes more of a Struggle to keep up the visits, the reading, the returns, and the comments, and it doesn't help that my weekends don't match up with the A-Z's Sabbath. And it's compounded by the fact the toughest letters are Strategically concentrated in a Series of obstacles in this last bit. But I'll rally, I know I will, can't Stop now! 

Talking about devotionals, are you aware of the Stereotype about Arabs avoiding any music apart from religious music? Music is supposed to be unIslamic. I don't know if that's right or wrong, no comment.  But I can't help pointing out that I do hear a massive amount of Secular, - traditional and popular and alternative music being Sung and listened to all around me in Arablands. And the largest Arabic record label - Rotana? it's based out of Saudi, Supposedly the nation of the Strictest interpretation of Islam, go figure! 

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2017