re: #116 CuriousLurker

To add to that: The “d” comes from al-Dawlah, (actually pronounced ad-Dawlah) the short “e” sound from the “i” in al-Iraq, and the “sh” from the Levant (al-Sham in Arabic, but actually pronounced ash-Sham and the “sh” sound is represented by a single letter).

The “al” in Arabic is the article “the”. I’m not sure why the first part is “Da” as Dawlah is the only word beginning with an “a” sound—the second word is al-Islamiyyah, which has a short “e” sound (or “i” sound, depending on the transliteration).

That said, “Iraq” starts with the letter ‘ayn (as does the word “Arabic” itself), whose pronunciation confounds most non-native speakers, including yours truly.

Oh, and there are no capital letters in Arabic, however some letters have up to three different forms depending on where they fall in a word (beginning, middle, end) and whether or not the letter can be connected on the right (some cannot).

Then there are the diacritical marks and something like 13 pronouns. Fun, huh? Between the difficulty of pronouncing some letters and the complexity of the grammar, you guys can see why I never learned it fluently. Simply learning to read & write it was the best I could do.

I’m impressed you can manage the reading and writing part. Chinese characters range from blissfully easy (一 yi = 1) to horrifyingly complex (龜 gui = turtle). It’s no wonder Chinese kids are so good at memorization.