Re: The Arabic Abbreviation Dictionary

["Khaled Hosny" <khaledhosny at eglug dot org>]

On 5/17/07, Laith Juwaidah <juwaidah1990 at gmail dot com> wrote:
> I don't think we can use abbreviations in Arabic, imagine yourself saying
> ذ.د.خ instead of RAM, using the full form is better.

Contrary to the myth, abbreviations do exist is Arabic for centuries
now. Abbreviations in Arabic has different forms, most of them are far
from the way English manages the task, but still they are doable and
already existed.
One of the common ways is نحت i.e. making a new word out of several
words by joining them together, famous examples to this include بسملة,
حوقلة, حيعلة for بسم الله, لا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله, حي على الصلاة
respectively. This is a common practice in علم الحديث, like ثنا for
حدثنا as an example.
Another way is to use 2 (or more) prominent letters from the word and
make the abbreviation out of them, like ا.هـ. for انتهى when quoting
someone in a book.
In some what recent practice there are things like ص.ب. for صندوق بريد
which is very famous and pronounced as it صاد باء. This a quick thing,
and I think we need a comprehensive study about that subject, I'm sure
we'll find more surprising facts.

--
Khaled Hosny

Egyptian GNU/Linux user
Member of Arabeyes translation team [www.arabeyes.org]
My Blog: [www.khaledhosny.org]

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