Poll of the Day > Anyone here read/write Arabic?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've been digging back into some studying I did years ago, but now I'm at a of a brick wall until I actually learn the language. I have a feeling I'll need to study a bit of Persian to get where I need to as well. Just wondering if there's anything helpful to know before I really get started. I can already tell it's going to be a pain. It's going to be mainly 13th-century Egyptian Arabic if that matters. Who knows what else I'll run into along the way though.

I can write

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

and so on

Probably either use liberal use of google translate, or pay someone.

shadowsword87 posted...

Probably either use liberal use of google translate, or pay someone.

I wish Google was an option. I need to translate an old book, so a lot of it is not naturally formatted.
As for paying someone to translate, that would likely be met with some very negative reactions at best. To say it's taboo is an understatement. There has been some translation done, but I've only seen about 40 pages that were done properly and the book is nearly 600 pages long.

allahu

Ogurisama posted...

.123456789

FUN FACT:

"Arabic Numerals" were actually invented in India. The only reason they're known as Arabic numbers in the West is because they came to Europe by way of the Middle East.

Ozmose posted...

it's taboo

Nonsense. Knowledge-seekers and scholars don't always give in to superstition. Plenty of scholars would be willing to help you if the tome you're looking to have transcribed has any scholarly merit.

Call or email universities which offer courses in Arabic language studies, courses in Egyptology, and/or or studies of Egypt in the Middle Ages. Yale, UCLA, NYU, etc. They may not be able to help you directly, but they may be able to point you in the direction of someone who can.

Don't thumb your nose at "amateur" scholars, either. There are teeming masses of curious people all over the world and on the internet. You may find fellow enthusiasts who can be surprisingly resourceful.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

He's translating the Necronomicon.

You're not far off.
It's Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra. It's the real life basis for the mythical book Al Azif, which was the inspiration for the Necronomicon. Outside of old school traditionalist Sufis, it's pretty much treated like the most evil thing ever written. Like most of this stuff though, there's a whole lot of misunderstanding around it. It's not so much Al-Buni's writings that attract the ire, it's everything that was added throughout the 17th-century. Even that stuff seems pretty tame though. I've seen way scarier books before.

Ozmose posted...

It's the real life basis for the mythical book Al Azif

It almost certainly isn't. Lovecraft was always fairly open about where he got the idea from, and forbidden tomes of lore were common in the horror of the era even before him (mainly stemming from the various grimoires that were circulating around Europe at the time, especially via groups like the Golden Dawn during the Victorian Era).

Lovecraft actually started with the Necronomicon as a concept and then retroactively invented its history, which makes stuff like the Lemegeton or the Book of Abramelin far more likely as original inspirations. And books claiming to be far older or from "foreign" lands was fairly common practice at the time. Odds are he never would have even heard of a book that was mostly specific to Sufis and Islam (especially considering his rampant racism and Anglophilia). His ignorance of actual Arabic culture is part of why he came up with a name that literally cannot exist for the original writer (it should be closer to something like Abd-el-Hazred).

(And even beyond that, he also screwed up the meaning of the actual word "Necronomicon" itself, because he sucked at Greek as well. His translation for it was "An Icon of the Law of the Dead", but the actual correct translation would be closer to "A Scientific Classification of the Dead". He screwed up again when mentioning when Olaus Wormius translated it into Latin, because he was off on when he actually lived by about 400 years. And he stole the name Al Azif from the story Vathek.)

But yeah. Lovecraft never really based anything on anything specific. A lot of his ideas were just half-remembered ideas and names from other sources kind of slammed together to form a new synthesized hybrid mess, that sounded vaguely right to him (which was "good enough" for someone writing pulp genre trash fiction for magazines that he didn't expect to last all that long after initial publication - he'd be utterly astonished that people were still reading his stories almost a hundred years later). It's why all his made up New England placenames all sound vaguely plausible but don't actually describe any real place (and in some cases, they describe literally impossible places that could never be located on a map due to conflicting elements).

Lovecraft probably never even heard of the Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra.





And suddenly that obsessive Lovecraft phase I went through in college finally bears fruit. WOO WOO!

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Lovecraft probably never even heard of the Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra.

No, I doubt Lovecraft ever had any direct contact with the Shams. If I recall correctly, his inspiration came from the Al Azif. The Al Azif was inspired by the Shams. Then again, I've heard both were based on the Picatrix, so who knows. It's all based on some brief notes and passing conversations from almost a century ago. I wouldn't really consider any of it to be written in stone, nor does it help my endeavor any either way.

I wouldn't really say Lovecraft "stole" anything. I think he genuinely loved most of the sources he took inspiration from. The whole circle of authors he was involved in were constantly using each others work to blend in with their own. Lovecraft's entire universe could probably be attributed to directly to Robert W. Chambers, he just brought it to a whole other level. They were all pretty much just pulp writers at the time, so I don't think any of them took it all too seriously. I'd almost liken it to a fan-fiction that grew so large it smothered the source material.

Ozmose posted...

You're not far off.
It's Shams al-Ma'arif al-Kubra. It's the real life basis for the mythical book Al Azif, which was the inspiration for the Necronomicon. Outside of old school traditionalist Sufis, it's pretty much treated like the most evil thing ever written. Like most of this stuff though, there's a whole lot of misunderstanding around it. It's not so much Al-Buni's writings that attract the ire, it's everything that was added throughout the 17th-century. Even that stuff seems pretty tame though. I've seen way scarier books before.

Rational adults should be as afraid of books as they are afraid of bogeymen and fairytale monsters.

Seek assistance from universities which offer courses in the vein of Egyptology, etc, or from online forums, organizations, or clubs where enthusiasts of this sort of thing meet and collaborate. You should be able to find people who aren't superstitious kooks who are willing to help you.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

they came to Europe by way of the Middle East.

north africa isn't the middle east, but yes

Grendel_Prime posted...

Rational adults should be as afraid of books as they are afraid of bogeymen and fairytale monsters.

There's the rub: you're expecting someone who thinks books are scary to be rational lmao

SwollenColon posted...

Grendel_Prime posted...

There's the rub: you're expecting someone who thinks books are scary to be rational lmao

That's easy to say when you've never held something truly dark.
One of the worst I've seen was a handbook used by a South American death cult that practiced fetishism. There's no description for how disturbing it is to sit and read some of the worst acts a person could commit, full knowing that the dirty old book in your hand was there, in the room while it was happening. The one I read had little hand written notes in the margins, personal tips on how to keep children calm and quiet while everything was going on, like "Make sure the doors are closed so they don't see mom".
Sorry, but if you don't find that scary, you should probably be removed from society and never permitted back in. You're not being some kind of hyper-analytical observer, you're a fucking sociopath.

On a side note. The guy that owned the book was trying to convince me it came from the Constanzo compound, which I'm quite confident was bullshit, and a good excuse to jack up the price on something I had no intention of buying anyway. I only mention it, because it was a rather famous death cult (mainly because they killed an American), and if you're curious about the stuff. That's a good place to start. Just Google Adolfo Constanzo.

Books aren't scary bub. Full stop.

Sorry you're afraid of inanimate objects

Maybe you should reconsider being a gun owner if you find that fucking books frighten you lmao probably not the most stable person to be brandishing a firearm

I can read it fluently.

id argue that books absolutely have the potential to be scary

omg ur right

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/8/6/AAfaVHAAEo_m.jpg

Soooo scary

im not saying his instance of it is

just that it has the potential to be scary otherwise horror writers would be out of a job probably

He's just being a contrarian prick because it was my post. He's made a habit of going out of his way to try to flame me regardless of the topic. It's just kinda sad at this point.