Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!crackers!m2c!wpi.WPI.EDU!omar.wpi.edu!shari
From: soudan@iitmax.iit.edu (Bassel Soudan)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Usage of "Islamic Arabic words" in articles
Message-ID: <1990Dec14.011432.2591@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Date: 14 Dec 90 01:14:32 GMT
References: <1990Dec5.082859.2254@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1990Dec10.212653.19135@wpi.WPI.EDU> <1990Dec13.143808.26449@wpi.WPI.EDU>
Sender: news@wpi.WPI.EDU (News)
Reply-To: soudan@iitmax.iit.edu (Bassel Soudan)
Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology
Lines: 45
Approved: shari@wpi.wpi.edu
Originator: shari@omar.wpi.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: omar.wpi.edu



In article <1990Dec13.143808.26449@wpi.WPI.EDU> bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes:
>
>The problem in part is a recognition that translation is often subtle
>and leads to inexact results. When Muslims discuss technical aspects
>of Islam, they will naturally try to be as accurate and exact as
>possible. This leads to the use of transliterated Arabic terms.

	I stand corrected. I ment something similar to what you are suggesting,
but did not type it like I thought about it.

>
>Perhaps one solution which preserves the accuracy of using
>transliterated Arabic while still serving to inform readers who may
>not know what those terms mean is simply to include a glossary for the
>terms used in that article. This can appear either as a footnote
>style- "How much is zakat [* obligatory charity *] for a single man?"-
>the first time such a term appears in an article, or in a glossary
>that appears at the end or beginning of the article. However it
>appears, it should be set off in such a way to make it clear that it
>is explanatory and not supplementary material, hence my use of "[* *]"
>above.
>
>Certain words may be so common and occur so often that anyone who
>reads anything at all about Islam (or reads this newsgroup) will
>probably know or pick up quickly, making the continual use of the
>above techniques superfluous. However, to keep the discussion
>accessible to *everyone*, perhaps one of the moderators could keep a
>"global glossary" of words so basic that they probably don't need to
>be routinely translated as above. This "global glossary" could be
>posted once a month automatically, so that new readers could just look
>in past messages to find it, and so that posters know which words
>don't need to be translated in the above manner.
>
>Besides words, the "global glossary" could also cover some of the
>simple suffix-construction rules of Arabic such as : 
>"-a, -ah, -at: feminine suffix. So `Muslimah' is `female Muslim'."
>

	I second that suggestion. And I think that may be the moderator(s) can
scan through each article and add(???) appropriate english translations to
some of the transliterated Arabic words within brackets. Any suggestions??

Bassel