Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 July 26

= July 26 =

Request for a quote in arabic script
A long time ago I read somewhere that the Quran states that each human is a universe. It is a beautiful idea. May I ask that someone shows what this quote looks like in arabic? Alternatively, if what I read long ago is not correct, please debunk the idea. Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 10:24, 26 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Have no idea about the Qur'an, but in quasi-western mysticism there are the concepts of Macrocosm and microcosm or "As above, so below"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you AnonMoos. I am aware of these. I am just looking for a hopefully pretty rendering in arabic script for a facebook thread. Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 10:59, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a bit difficult to look for this since there isn't really a good Qur'an concordance in English (at least not online). You can search http://corpus.quran.com/, but searching for "universe" doesn't give any results for anything like that. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:05, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't remember any such quote from reading the Quran, and indeed to me it doesn't seem like the kind of statement the Quran would make. However, it may well have escaped my memory. The best way to verify this I think would be to find a knowledgeable Muslim. There are quite a few that have memorized the entire Quran (though maybe not here on Wikipedia). - Lindert (talk) 11:36, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I was sort of hoping that there was a knowledgeable, arab-speaking Muslim here on Wikipedia. :) I know of none where I am. Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 15:28, 27 July 2014 (UTC) I have read an english version of the book, and I do not either remember it from there. It was in some other context that I read about it, much later. Star Lord  -   星王 (talk) 15:30, 27 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't read Arabic, so I just read a translation of the Quran too. Anyway, similar thoughts are apparently present in Sufism, e.g. the Persian poet Attar of Nishapur wrote that "the heart is the dwelling place of that which is the essence of the Universe" (source), and a Sufi saying states that "the universe is a big man, and man is a little universe" (source, includes Arabic). - Lindert (talk) 16:54, 27 July 2014 (UTC)


 * "man is a little universe" is close enough! and with a script to boot! And sourced :) Who needs the Quran. It was almost boring as the telephone catalogue anyway. Lots of repetitions too. Thank you Lindert! This will do nicely :) Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 18:14, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Ali al-Ridha apparently says in Al-Risalah al-Dhahabiah: "Do you think that you are a small body, while the greatest world has folded itself in you?" but I've never seen the Arabic; the Farsi wikipedia doesn't have much of an article on it, and the Arabic wikipedia nothing at all. Belle (talk) 15:13, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * This was totally new to me. Thank you, Belle. Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 07:40, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Are there languages talking about "saurs"?
In German, it's rather usual to use the term Saurier ("saur") as collective term for extinct, usually giant reptiles like dinosaurs, ichtyosaurs, pterosaurs etc. The borders of the term are not clearly defined, it might also include early amphibians. Is such a term also usual in other languages? --KnightMove (talk) 11:58, 26 July 2014 (UTC)


 * In the original Greek, Σαυρα or Σαυρος means "lizard"... AnonMoos (talk) 12:17, 26 July 2014 (UTC)


 * French has "les sauriens" (or "Sauria"), Italian has "i Sauri" (or "Sauria"), and Spanish has "los saurios" (or "Sauria"). ---Sluzzelin talk  12:56, 26 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The French link is: "les sauriens" (the one given by Sluzzelin refers to Saura a Norwegian village, a typo...). But, in French "les sauriens" is a suborder (which is a subject of controversy) that contains lizards, not dinosaurs. However some people use the phrase "grands sauriens" to refer to what the OP call "giant reptiles". The phrase is not used by scientists nowdays. A Google search gives a lot of references to Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire who wrote Recherches sur de grands sauriens trouvés à l'état fossile vers les confins maritimes de la basse normandie, attribués d'abord au crocodile, puis déterminés sous les noms de téléosaurus et sténéosaurus. — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:29, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Saurian μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2014 (UTC)