Jabal al-Lughat

Going east of Algiers along the coast, the names of two little port towns stand out. Their inhabitants know them as جنّات /d͡ʒənnat/ (somet...

Gaza , Arabic غزّة ghazzah , is another extremely old city of the eastern Mediterranean, having been in existence for at least three millen...

Lebanon's cities and villages, tragically now in the news , have some interesting etymologies. I always used to wonder about the dif...