Daily Archives: June 25, 2010

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* Guest Post By Nadine Chahine: Why Arabic Matters

In honor of the “Blog in Arabic” day, I invited an old friend and one of the world’s foremost experts on Arabic Typography to guest post here, in Arabic, on why the Arabic language matters.

She has gracefully accepted and sent me the text below. She even used one of her own fonts for that purpose, and for that I’m very grateful. (For non Arabic speakers, translation is underneath)

Translation

Do you speak Arabic?

Where to begin? We are living today in a world that is fast moving. And it might be easy for us to say: This is it… All is gone. Let’s throw away all that we have, and try to follow others to see what they have achieved. And often we think that our language is no longer able to serve our needs today. That it is no longer able to move, or better run, forward…

But if we do say that, then we forget that our language lives inside of us, no matter where we go or what we do. It is our mother, our father, and the house we grew up in. Did we learn to speak English? Of course. French? Even better. But when we are angry and upset, we want to swear in Arabic. When we are in pain, we also cry out in Arabic. And football? We definitely cheer in Arabic! And when we love, and we love with all of our being, then we still love in Arabic.

A couple of tongue-in-cheek questions to those of you who speak both languages:

1-Do you thing the meaning of Nadine’s sentiments was lost in translation?

2- Why do you think Nadine, with all her love for her mother tongue, blogs in English, not in Arabic?

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Soon, the Word "Darreja" Will Be Used by Marketers Everywhere.

The Word “Darreja” means, in the Lebanese dialect, “Make this a common thing”. The word, “Darrajah” on the other hand means bicycle in the “official”, usually written-only Arabic (In Lebanon we just say bicyclette).

Then, someone somewhere found a link between the two words and thought it would be a cool rallying cry for a campaign to make bicycles common in Beirut.

Fair enough. But now, it seems, people want to make the word “Darreja” itself a common thing (Irony alert), and are using it in weird contexts like in this poster to encourage the use of the Arabic Language ..

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Lebanon's Top 25 Entrepreneurs Of 2010

American Embassy in Beirut:

Ambassador to Lebanon Michele J. Sison hosted a reception that gathered together leading entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, and pioneers in start-up acceleration from Lebanon and the United States to honor the “Lebanon 25” – the 25 fastest growing companies in Lebanon. Boston-based AllWorld Network and numerous international and local partners invited Lebanese businesses to compete for inclusion on the Lebanon 25 list. The Lebanon 25 winners are eligible to be included in the Arabia 500, the first definitive record of the fastest growing, most dynamic entrepreneurs in the region, which will be announced the Spring of 2011.

The top 25 List includes “Casper & Gambinis”, “Wooden Bakery”, “Born Interactive”, “Clear Tag” and other cool companies. See the complete list here.
 
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