With regard to Arabic and other cognate Semitic languages, you might want to consider Patrick R. Bennett's, Comparative Semitic Linguistics, A Manual, Eisnbraums, 1998. There are more complete works but this is a good place for someone who knows Hebrew to begin. At some point learning a little Arabic grammar will be a good thing.
ערבית למתחילים
דן בקר
הוצאת דיונון-אוניברסיטת תל-אביב
דאנאקוד 158-55242
There are hundreds of online tutorials that will give you the Arabic alphabet and vowels. You could try what I did- learn vaguely the letters and how they join, print out a chart, take a trip from Jerusalem to Eilat, and attempt to read all the signs on the way. It's an easy way to learn how to read a language in three hours!
Arabic is a little tough (for me), but I think learning to read Greek is pretty simple. It could be done in a couple of hours. Also, the Greek transcribes in Latin characters pretty neatly. Arabic is a little trickier, because there are additional consonants that aren't even found in Hebrew (such as ghayn), but that can be solved pretty easily "gh," for example.
Wikipedia is a good intro, as is http://www.omniglot.com/. There are tons of resources out there.
Great blog, BTW! :)
This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but it may be of interest:
http://www.seforimonline.org/
sef...to_egyptian.pdf
Warning, it's a big file, but at least it's free.
Thanks for all your suggestions!
Keep 'em coming!
I confirm that Patrick R. Bennett's, Comparative Semitic Linguistics, A Manual is a good starting point. Most of the Arabic alphabet does correspond to the Hebrew alphabet however, one cannot transliterate freely from Hebrew letters to the "corresponding" Arabic letters. For example a (sh) in Hebrew, might correspond to a (th)or even to a (s)in Arabic and vice versa. Cheers and Kol tuv!
To S.
B"SD
There IS a "ghayin" in Hebrew, it's called "ghimmel" & written "gh" as in "meghilla." Google it & find it in scholarly journals. I've heard Rav Mazuz (of Kisei Rachamim) say that it was still heard even in ASHKENAZ 250 years ago, I forgot his source. This reminds me of people spelling "schul" as "shul."
best,
Ra'anan
Jers.
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