To the Editor of the Science Times and Ms. Margaret Wertheim:
I wanted to write you to tell you that I very much enjoyed your July 6 article “Virtual Camp Trains Soldiers in Arabic, and More.”
However, I found a glaring error in the 10th paragraph, where you write: “No one is going to be able to read Omar Khayyam after this training…” implying that Khayyam wrote in Arabic. In fact, Khayyam was Persian and remains one of the greatest Persian writers in history. (Update: While Khayyam did write many scientific works in Arabic, it would seem that you were referring to Khayyam’s more widely-known poetic works, which were written in Persian.)
While the Persian language does use the Arabic alphabet, the two languages are no more similar than English and French, languages that also share an alphabet.
Therefore, someone learning Arabic would not be very likely to understand the works of Omar Khayyam.
I humbly request a correction at your earliest convenience.
-Cyrus J. Farivar
Berkeley, CA
