designbump

‘Arabic Calligraphy’ is a hybrid English term. ‘Calligraphy’, taken from the Greek kallos (beauty) and graphe (writing), is literally understood in the western perception as ‘beautiful (hand) writing’ of the Arabic language. Yet the Arabic term for what we call calligraphy invites closer inspection. Within the Arabic language the transliterated word ‘Khatt’ (خط) is derived from ‘line’, ‘design’, and ‘construction’. The philological connotations get lost in the translated term ‘calligraphy’.