My studies over the past week have lead me into the area of palindromes. These are fun to think about in English and even more fun to learn about in Arabic! I came across a particularly lovely example in Arabic during my search:
بلح تعلق تحت قلعة حلب
For any non-Arabic readers, I will try and explain it as best as I can! Reading from right to left (or left to right if you prefer!) the first word – بلح – means ‘date’, as in the fruit that grows on date palms. In this case it’s actually the plural. The second word – تعلق – means ‘hang’, so ‘the dates hang…
The third word – تحت - is a palindrome itself and it means ‘below’ or ‘underneath’. The fourth word – -قلعة - means ‘castle’ or ‘citadel’, and finally, the fifth word – حلب - is the name of a city in Syria (Aleppo in English). All together it means ‘dates hang underneath the citadel in Aleppo’. And it says exactly the same thing if you read it backwards!
It sounds very beautiful when read in Arabic, and very poetic.
Citadel and palms in Aleppo, Syria
This is so cool! I can’t believe that after all these years of studying I’ve never come across an Arabic palindrome before – thanks for sharing!
Consider the eloquent saying of Imam “Ali”:
مودته تدوم لكل هول … وهل كل مودته تدوم
Trying to convey the meaning in context:
His dearness/friendship everlast every hardship
And is there a dearship that ever last (like his)
Hello Katherine,
I used the same palindrome example as you on my blog post at http://arabicstudent.blogspot.com/2007/10/palindrome.html. My teacher in Yemen taught me it. I have a few more links in the post to other palindromes too. I’d like to collect more of them but haven’t been able to find the correct Arabic translation for palindrome so far. Any ideas?
Hi there. I don’t know if you know this or not but there are loads of palindromes found in the Quran. Check out this website for a few examples: http://www.balikislam.com/profiles/blogs/palindrome-and-syntax-in-the