Arabic

The learned in times which have passed away, and among nations which have ceased to exist, were constantly employed in writing books on the several departments of science and on the various branches of knowledge… (translated) Preface to Al-Jabr¹ by Al-Khwarizmi²

The Arabic alphabet³⁴ is used to write Arab and Aramaic languages and is closely related to other Semitic scripts like Syriac and Hebrew.

It is a very rare script in Britain. There is a relatively important⁵ family of knights who may read, write or teach the script - but it’s not a large group of people, and there aren’t a lot of Arabic texts or other travelers.

Some of these texts bring with them new ideas from the East - mathematics, astrology, engineering, geography and many other concepts⁶.

Footnotes

1. Or al-Kitāb al-Mukhtaṣar fī Ḥisāb al-Jabr wal-Muqābalah, (The Concise Book of Calculation by Completion and Balancing) - but this abbreviated name was its more famous title - and the modern word Algebra ended up referring not just to that particular technique (or algorithm) but the broader scope of his teachings. ↩

2. Or as the translations lost fidelity to the name, Algorithmo ↩

3. Or abjad as vowels aren’t necessarily represented, leaving a degree of interpretation to reading it. ↩

4. This is called Paleo-Arabic or Nabatean Arabic (based on the exact form, which is in flux at this time) to distinguish it from the modern Arabic script we know of today. Without knowing its future trajectory, its contemporaries aren’t going to call it that, though. ↩

5. Like, B-list. They’re important, but not the biggest ones. ↩

6. This is not the historic role of Arabic at this time period (the page quote of Al-Jabr for instance was written in the 800s and reached Western Europe in the 1100s - well past this particular era of Arabic script!), but as a conglomeration of the entire Middle Ages this represents the later medieval trade of ideas often from Arabic translations. ↩