it’s an unfortunate position, that of aspiring to be, simultaneously mind you, a modern ascetic and respectable bibliophile. each book that makes it to the shelf is one more piece of red dust holding me down, one more handful of mass adding to the inevitable shipping costs.

despite this, the books keep coming in. today after two weeks of waiting, the latest arrived: a category-based dictionary, arabic to uyghur. in arabic it’s uninspiringly called معجم المصطلحات العربية والايغورية (uyghur: erepche-uyghurche turkum sozler lughiti / ئەرەبچە ـ ئۇيغۇرچە تۈركۈم‎ سۆزلەر لۈغىتي) which just means “arabic/uyghur terminological dictionary”. exciting, right? i thought so. all of the categories and definitions are in uyghur with the terms themselves in arabic. that means once i find the categogry i want, it’s easy enough to run through the words. sorting out the categories is another matter. without any sort of urgency though, it’s not really a problem.

there are a few that i’m planning to add to the glossary over spring festival. now if only i could get the 汉满大词典 from the shanghai bookstore.

major thanks to my supplier.