Arabic edition of WEIT now out

December 17, 2018 • 10:00 am

Or should I say, as the kids do, that “my book has just dropped”?

My Egyptian colleague, who saw the book through from inception until today, tells me that the Arabic edition of Why Evolution is True has now been printed, and next week will be on sale in a bookshop in Cairo, and perhaps in other venues. Rest assured that if there’s a way for Arabic-speakers to order or buy it, I’ll give you as much information as possible. There’s one possible contact at the bottom.

I also got three pictures of the cover. I can’t read them, of course, but Arabic-speaking readers might give us a translation of the cover. I have to say that the front image plenty weird: the T. rex looks like Groucho Marx!

 

Here’s a scan of the title page giving one idea of where you can get it; I’m told the telephone prefix is 0020. Or you might email the address given below.

 

47 thoughts on “Arabic edition of WEIT now out”

    4. Great! Do I smell a 3-D game version of WEIT?

      Or will Jerry end up imprisoned in a 20th Century Fox black site, undergoing daily re-education sessions led by a spittle spraying Kent Hovind, pacing back and forth in front of a gibberish covered blackboard, repeatedly slapping a riding crop into a leather-gloved palm….?

      2. I’m thinking Lin-Manuel Miranda might wanna make a musical out of it.

        Hamilton meets Lion King.

  7. Congrats!

    That cover is hilarious. It’s like a boy of twelve years described it to someone. “I want there to be a cool dinosaur like a T. Rex and he’s really angry and he’s stomping around the globe and stuff. And there should be birds and planes and fishes and plants so it looks really cool.”

  8. I’ve just started learning Arabic, and that font is crazy, but I think this is an accurate transcription of the cover:

    جيرى كونى
    لماذا التطور حقيقى
    ترجمة
    سامى هحمدزلط

    Which Google Translate gives as:

    Gerry Kony
    Why evolution is real
    Translation
    Sami Hamedzelt

    1. On second thought, I think I’m almost surely wrong in reading the bottom line (which appears to be the translator’s name).

      1. They obviously didn’t know how to pronounce PCC(E)s surname and turned him into a coney (rabbit), which ain’t bad. I think it should be more like كوين. As for his first name, Egyptian Arabic turns a “j” into a hard “g” so it is Gerry and not Jerry .

        I think (but I’m not sure) that the first letter in the translator’s surname is a mim. Whatever it is, it’s a mouthful of a name and I wouldn’t know how to pronounce it.

        1. But if PCC(E) has a colleague who was shepherding the book through the translation and publication process, I presume that he knows how to pronounce “Jerry Coyne” so I guess that’s the way his name is going to be spelled in (Egyptian) Arabic. But I wonder if what you translated as a “ya” at the end of كونى could be an alif maqsura? Even if it is, it still wouldn’t approximate the pronunciation of “Coyne.” But I like Gerry Coney.

    2. The translator’s name is Sami Mohammed Zalat. The third part of the name has the consonants Z, L and T. The short vowels are not shown in the Arabic, so it is not possible (for me, who is not that familiar with Egyptian names) to say which of the three possibilities they are.
      The “oy” sound in Coyne can only be approximated in the Arabic transliteration, and a long O sound has been used.

    1. Yes, please!

      Earlier this year I had a dicussion with a co-irker about evolution. His stance was basically: ‘I don’t understand evolution so it can’t be true.’ It would have been nice to hand him this book.

  11. It could cause quite a stir in Egypt and other Arabic countries…

    Anyway, congratulations, and I hope it will be very successful and require many subsequent editions. May it spread far and wide.

  13. I’m going to guess the airplane symbolizes the Alaska Airlines employee who stole a plane for a joyride above Seattle, subsequently removing himself from the gene pool.

  14. Say the secret woid, the dinosaur drops down and you win a hundred dollars.

    Might wanna take your Egyptian royalties in bitcoin, boss.

  18. I was wondering about that plane as well…perhaps a symbol of human achievement that couldn’t have occurred without evolution? Then there’s the yellow tang, a seagull, a shark and a cartoon dino…very odd and random.

  19. Congratulations! May your book contribute to the advancement of science in that part of the world. In its golden age, the Islamic world was a center of science and math. May it be once more.

  22. Congratulations Jerry! It’s so cool to see WEIT going into other languages.

    Now, how about FvF for Saudi Arabia …

  23. “The T. Rex looks like Groucho Marx”

    Just so long as no-one thinks he looks like Mohammed…

    😎

    cr

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