Arabic Aesthetics

I’m still a sucker for anything written in Arabic. I wander the streets trying to decipher the different styles of the scripts, mouthing the sounds to myself, sometimes falling upon words I know, or chuckling at the transliterations of English locution. At times, a side-by-side translation helps me along.

From my dabbling in design, being able to read & understand these flowing lines were a major motivating factor to my inscription at the Damascus university to learn some Arabic.

I wonder if those people whose language uses a different script to the latin alphabet find the same exoticism in our characters? I can’t imagine it holds the same style & panache as their cursive hand… But then I’m biased.

So even a word painted on the back of a pick-up truck holds aesthetic pleasure for me. I guess I’m easy to please.