Cousins

Learning Arabic continues to be interesting and challenging. One problem is that spoken Arabic is different to written Arabic, the written Arabic is 'classical' - this is also used on TV/radio programmes. Another interesting topic is the various words used for family members - life would be so much simpler if I was a single child born to parents who were also single children. Not wishing to bore you, but the words for cousins are a good example. In English a child of your parent's sibling is simply called a cousin - not so simple in Arabic. Firstly the words for your father's siblings (uncle, auntie) are different to your mother's siblings; then the children of you uncle/auntie are identified by their parent and their sex. Sooooo the word for my mother's sister's daughter is different from my mother's sister's son or my father's sister's daughter. For the mathematicians there are eight words for the equivalent English word 'cousin'.

We are starting to say our good-byes, sorting out our apartment and packing our suitcases. There will hopefully be another blog before we travel to Is/Pal. Thanks for reading. P