Solar and Lunar Letters in Arabic

For those of you who might be troubled that  a name/noun like "Al-Tanf" is written by westerners as "At-Tanf," there is this:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_and_moon_letters

 

pl

Comments

[Serge]

Bad day for SAA. This incident at tanf, extensive(for this conflict) casualties among the Tiger Forces to the south of Jirah airbase including commanders,among them the head of the leopard forces. As well as the butchery of the Ismailis to the east of salamiyah, list of dozens of NDF killed and dozens more injured just, released plus the women and children slaughtered in cold blood when IS broke through and temporarily held the village

[Charles Cameron]

Those of us who lack Arabic thank you, Sir.

[Trent]

Is there a mnemonic device to help or do you just learn the difference as you're learning the alphabet?

[turcopolier]

trent

It becomes instinctive. pl

[turcopolier]

PA

If other things in Arabic grammar come to mind, let me know. It is quite complex in the written form possessing a structure unlike Western languages and is much more developed than modern Hebrew. It has states similar to cases that are not and no tenses, only perfective and imperfective states. Possession is shown by noun-noun constructs called an idafa. Colloquial Arabic in its many forms is much simpler. Noun-verb-object is the basis for a sentence with modifiers adorning it all. The lexicon is immense having eight or nine million items. pl

[Dave Speck]

As a former student of COL Lang, I can attest to that. Even after nearly 30 years, this rule is for me, as he puts it, instinctive.