Sun And Moon Letters
In Arabic and Maltese, the consonants are divided into two groups, called the sun letters or solar letters (Arabic: حروف شمسية ḥurūf šhamsiyyah) and moon letters or lunar letters (حروف قمرية ḥurūf qamariyyah), based on whether or not they assimilate the letter lām (ﻝ l) of a preceding definite article al- (الـ). These names come from the fact that the word for "the sun", aš-šams, assimilates the lām, while the word for "the moon", al-qamar, does not.
Read more about Sun And Moon Letters: Rule, Orthography, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words sun and, sun, moon and/or letters:
“As the shade went up
And the ambulance came crashing through the dust
Of the new day, the moon and the sun and the stars,
And the iceberg slowly sank
In the volcano and the sea ran far away
Yellow over the hot sand, green as the green trees.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In the pink light
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,
round and round and round at the same height
in perpetual sunset,”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.”
—Sylvia Plath (1932–1963)
“Two months dead, I wrestle with your name
Whose separate letters make a paltry sum
That is not you.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)