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, moon and/or letters:
“The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects, as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Shake off your heavy trance,
and leap into a dance,
Such as no mortals use to tread,
fit only for Apollo
To play to, for the Moon to lead,
And all the Stars to follow.”
—Francis Beaumont (1584–1616)
“... all my letters are read. I like that. I usually put something in there that I would like the staff to see. If some of the staff are lazy and choose not to read the mail, I usually write on the envelope “Legal Mail.” This way it will surely be read. It’s important that we educate everybody as we go along.”
—Jean Gump, U.S. pacifist. As quoted in The Great Divide, book 2, section 10, by Studs Terkel (1988)