BenZL43

I have written the translations for those in the SVN discussion thread.

The only main difference between the Arabic and Persian script is that Persian has some letters that Arabic doesn't have.

These letters are: (چ) Ch, (گ) G and (پ) P . We don't have a Ch, hard G or P sound in formal Arabic, but in Egyptian Arabic, we use a hard G instead of a J.

You can give me city names and I'll try to Arabize them to the best of my efforts. I often do it when I'm playing RFC as the Arabs anyhow, and I've Arabized some cities that normally don't have an Arabic name.

As for Coptic, I am not really sure to be honest. What I know is that Coptic is essentially the latest form of the Native Egyptian language that uses Greek letters, so there is a combination of the two languages. For that, you should probably use Greek city names as a base, but "Egyptianize" them. I could attempt to do that as well.

For example, the deceased Libyan leader, Gaddafi.

If you're talking in a Libyan accent, you write it Gaddafi in Latin.

In Egyptian, it sounds more like Qazzafi.

Literally, his name from Arabic letters to Latin letters would be Qathafi.
the "Th" sound is the letter "dhal" from Arabic. It the sound of "the".

Yeah, people called it al-Qahira. Now we are talking about modern times. Cairo is the capital of Egypt, which is probably why it has that prefix instead of Iskindiriyyah, which is often said now without "al" in front of it. It's a rather confusing topic, even I get confused of it sometimes. I'm pretty sure someone doing a major in Arabic is studying the reason for this, nothing we have to worry about here =P .

I am a Canadian from a 100% Egyptian background, yes. Culturally, I am probably more Canadian, but I still retain relative fluency in the Arabic language and knowledge of the culture.

I don't know any good programs for transliteration. If you would like, you could tell me all the city names you have in mind, and I could try writing an equivalent. The problem is that there is more than one way of saying something in Arabic using Latin characters.

That is difficult to answer.

Basically, this, "Al" prefix means "The". For Jerusalem, Al-Quds in Arabic literally translates to, "The (location of) Holiness". The Arabic language identifies Jerusalem as the place of holiness, hence the need to put the "Al" in front of it.

But why do we refer to Alexandria as, "The Alexandria" and Barcelona just as it-self? I'm not really sure.

What I'm assuming is that because Alexandria was the capital of Byzantine Egypt at the time of the Arab conquests, it was seen as an important location, which could explain the need to put, "The" in front of it. But that doesn't really make sense, because Makkah is considered just as important but it doesn't have that prefix.

The locals in Egypt just call Alexandria "Iskandariyya", without the prefix, just so you know. I hope that cleared some things up -)

Hey Ben how'ye doing?

Hi there Ben.

To answer your question on al-Quds vs. Al-Quds, I do not really thing there is a difference, because there is no such thing as upper case letters in Arabic.

I prefer to say al-Quds, because the "al" in the word translates to "the", and my justification is that the word "the" is less important than "Quds", so that is why I use a lower case when I say "al" in Arabic.

But it really does not matter.

I hope I can help.

You should vote on my America thread!

I probably will, and I will definitely be close to Japan; always.

No, as I only took Japanese in high school and Arabic in college.

After living in Japan for two months and studying it for four years, I have never heard tati before. It is tachi. Japanese doesn't even have the sound ti, it is always chi.

Strangely enough, you can say watashi-tachi, but not boku-tachi

My Arabic professor is an Egyptian teaching Levant dialect Arabic, so I pronounce is Assalam walaikum, just like the song by Hakim.

In the Democratic Caliphate thread you said to use the phrase "InsyaAllah" but I would spell it Insha'Allah. Perhaps edit that post?

Yeah!

Happy late birthday dude! I'm so sorry I forgot! I had it on my calendar but I've just been busy recently.

Yeah I'm better now.

Yes I do.

Yo hey. I have an amazingly strong flu right now. If I don't make it out alive, I want you to feel guilty for being a doctor and not saving me.

Sorry that you can't use the forums to their full advantage. But I would rather not use my main email, since the address has my full name in it. You could use my secondary email - connectine@gmail.com - but be warned that 1. I do not see the inbox except for the rarest occasions and 2. whatever you send me will be buried under literally hundreds of emails from Youtube and the Minecraft Forums.

Would using PMs be a better idea?

But I would like to know why you think the JKN is a bad idea. I hope that your disdain does not extend to universal healthcare in general...

1. What's the consensus on universal health care in Indonesia? Do most Indonesians support it, or do they hate it? I know that Indonesia has recently implemented a UHC system starting this year. I know that this program is encountering difficulties, but do Indonesians think that this program is a good thing in general, especially in comparison with the previous (terrible) system?

2. What has your country done regarding health during humanitarian crisis? As a major victim of the 2004 tsunami, what Indonesia does regarding this should be quite interesting to examine. Were there any major health issues after the tsunami? What about other disasters (considering that Indonesia has the most volcanoes in the world)?

(Sorry for the double post; there's a character limit regarding messages.)

Thanks for responding! I was waiting for several days for a response, but since I know you're a medical student, I don't really mind.

As for the project, it's part of an after school activity called Model UN. It's this club where every so often, students, representing delegates from different countries, get together at conferences to (attempt to) solve major world problems. A more comprehensive summary can be found at the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_United_Nations. But before we can actually get to go to the conference, we must write a position paper outlining our country's position and potential solutions to the problem.

So my partner and I are selected to be in the WHO, and we will be representing Indonesia. Thus, as both an Indonesian and a medical student, you should be especially well-suited to answer the following questions: