Sugar Comes from Arabic: A Beginner's Guide to Arabic Letters and Words

by Barbara Whitesides

A user-friendly Arabic alphabet-and-culture book for complete beginners
"This book makes the Arabic alphabet much more approachable for the complete beginner, and can generate enthusiasm for expanded study of the language."
--Paul Beran, Director, The Outreach Center, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University No other Arabic alphabet book demystifies the letters in such a comfortable way, by introducing them in English alphabetical order of the Roman alphabet and using the spelling of English names and words as a way to learn the Arabic. Look up matching letters, follow the directions, and soon you'll be writing your own name in Arabic! Clear, concise illustrations show how to draw and remember each letter. Color photographs and explorations of individual words reveal important and often unrecognized connections between the West and the Arab world, such as the delicious gift of sugar. Sugar Comes from Arabic is an exciting entry into the language of more than twenty countries and more than 300 million people. Simple stick-figure cartoons show you how to draw and remember each letter. Winning illustrations of words reveal important and too-often-unrecognized connections between our cultures, such as the delicious gift of sugar we received from the Arab world. This book is an irresistible way to raise cultural literacy.

Genres: Language, Nonfiction

133 pages, Spiral-bound

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jack Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific introduction to Arabic for English speakers/reader/writers.

I have used phrasebooks, dictionaries and even textbooks to learn some Arabic to prepare for visits to the Middle East (as an archaeologist) and this is the best book for learning the visual component of the language.

It's organized based on the English alphabet and then gives equivalent Arabic letters. Throughout, the book takes a simple premise -- write your name in Arabic -- and goes to town. Letter A? How would you write Anna? Harry? The text somewhat repetitively (but effectively) takes you through the steps: eliminate vowels, flip the word backwards (to read right to left) and then swap the Roman letter for an Arabic equivalent.

That's all well and good, but what's great about the book are all the extra asides on linguistic borrowings and cultural facts. The word SUGAR comes from Arabic, as does COFFEE, LEMON and CHECKMATE. SHERBET and SYRUP come from the same Arabic root. LUTE and GUITAR are Arabic, along with all those "al" words: ALGEBRA, ALCOVE, ALCHEMY, ALCOHOL, ALMANAC.

This would be a great book to flip through before a first trip to an Arabic country, and excellent for kids who read up through adults.

My one complaint is that the number system is not given much space in this book. For a traveler, the numbers are often more important to know than the letters.

Bonus fact: the author's grandfather was James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute in Chicago and first person in America to hold a chair in Egyptology.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun introduction to written Arabic. The book focuses on writing your name using Arabic characters but also shows some English words that have been borrowed from Arabic and gives some cultural details that are very interesting. The format of the book is spiral bound, and there are some places for practicing the letters, so this would probably not have a long life in a library. (Best suited for an individual.)

[Patria · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked about this book is that it gives you a way to remember the script once you are familiar with it. I learned the script by use of the Pimsleur supplemental reading guides but found myself to be confused over some of the similar looking letters. Quick read and fun ways to remember through use of visualization.

[Amy Denim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked the way she gave funny pictures and sentences to help remember what the letters are and how they are formed. It is lacking all the extra squigglies to help define the vowel sounds, which were important to me since most of my name is just vowel sounds. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to write this beautiful language.

[Eman Almazloum · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Arabic person myself living in the west I was amazed by the fun presentation as well as the cultural and historical context for many English words that have arabic origin and the Arabic spelling for alot of non-arabic names really nice way to connect the west and the arab world ,, I enjoyed it , thanks Barbraa

[Andreea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was annoyed all along that it was just explaining how to write different English names in Arabic but in the end I realized that it has a lot of very useful information especially about cultural things that the world is already familiar with, which makes the start much easier.
A few things I learnt that blew my mind:
- there are more Muslims in non-Arab countries than in Arab countries
- Virgin Mary is being mentioned in the Quran more than in the Bible (a few other Christian characters too, like Jesus, Moses, Adam, Abraham)
- spoken by more than 300 million people
- The Arabic script was used for writing Turkish until 75 years ago
- the script is also used to write other languages, often completely unrelated to Arabic
- "China's People's Bank" also spelled in Arabic letters on every Chinese banknote
- إفْتَحْ يَاْ سِمْسِمْ Open up, Sesame!
- checkmate comes from Arabic شيخ مات - the king is dead (although chess itself was invented in Asia, it probably came to Spain through the Arabs
- صابون soap
- racquet comes from راحة (raaha) which means palm of the hand
- a Muslim year is 11 days shorter than the Christian one (every month length is based on the moon phases)
- Gibraltar comes from جبل طارق (Tariq's mountain); Tariq is the Muslim general from the Berber tribes of North Africa who invaded the Spanish peninsula in 711AD.