Sun and Moon Letters

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:

    I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.
    Willa Cather (1873–1947)

    Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor,
    For ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich,
    And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
    So honor peereth in the meanest habit.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    There are two kinds of adventurers: those who go truly hoping to find adventure and those who go secretly hoping they won’t.
    —William Least Heat Moon [William Trogdon] (b. 1939)

    Harvey: About this Voltaire.
    Helene: What about him?
    Harvey: How’d he ever get time to do all he did?
    Helene: He lived to be old.
    Harvey: Even so, how many letters did he write?
    Helene: Oh, I don’t know exactly. Thousands.
    Harvey: I can’t remember when I even wrote one.
    Helene: You should try.
    Harvey: It’s too late. I wouldn’t know where to send it.
    Tom Waldman (d. 1985)