The idea of maintaining linguistic standards, through an Arab equivalent of the French Academy, has been around since the 19th century. Report by ArabicNews. For Arabic into English, Hans Wehr's dictionary is conveniently small but very comprehensive - which makes it popular with students at all levels. For English into Arabic, good dictionaries are hard to find, with the result that many students end up using several. It is worth buying if you visit Egypt, where its price is a fraction of that in Europe or the United States.
More proverbs are welcome.
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