This book presents a contrastive linguistics study of Arabic and English for the dual purposes of improved language teaching and speech processing of Arabic via spectral analysis and neural networks. Contrastive linguistics is a field of linguistics which aims to compare the linguistic systems of two or more languages in order to ease the tasks of teaching, learning, and translation. The main focus of the present study is to treat the Arabic minimal syllable automatically to facilitate automatic speech processing in Arabic. It represents important reading for language learners and for linguists with an interest in Arabic and computational approaches.

Reflecting distinct and important stages in the career of the preeminent Algerian writer Mohammed Dib, ""At the Cafe" and "The Talisman"" brings together two collections that embroider on themes relating to the Algerian War for Independence (1954-1962). "At the Cafe, " published in 1955, is mostly realistic in style and illustrates particularly well Dib's uncanny talent for storytelling. "The Talisman, " published eleven years later, reflects Dib's growing penchant for relating his perception of the magical or mystical qualities underlying everyday reality.

When he wrote "At the Cafe, " Dib felt it was his duty to witness or testify on behalf of the downtrodden of Algeria under French colonial rule. Three stories in this collection--"Little Cousin," "A Fine Wedding," and "The Long Wait"--poignantly describe the rampant poverty, hunger, sickness, and despair that prevailed under French rule. In others, such as the titular story and "Forbidden Lands," Dib gives a voice to those who had been silenced but who were slowly learning to make themselves heard. On the eve of the war for independence, Dib felt obligated--as does the protagonist, Djeha, in "The Companion"--to take a stand on affirming one's role within the community and take action.

In "The Talisman, " Dib no longer feels the need to testify. Although colonialism and the brutality of war are still central threads, his treatment of them in this collection is more scathingly critical. Dib's style also shifts from the naturalism dominant in his earlier writing, showing a marked interest in the fantastic or magical. The under-lying themes in this collection take up, among other things, an obsession with the experience of death, a fascination with madness, the decrypting of symbols, the quest for a primordial language, and the possibilities of spiritual transcendence.

Poetry is one of the major forms of literary expression in both Africa and the Arab World and this anthology endeavours to provide the reader with a glimpse of the most representative voices of the poetic movements, and generations, in the French-speaking countries of these two regions, at the same time as doing away with the divisions and distinctions between the countries of Africa. The poets anthologized here - from North Africa, Sub Saharan Africa and the Arab World - have long wished to escape from artificial pigeon-holing and rather to be associated with common threads. The past half-century has confirmed their work as poetry of great literary quality, full of a unique vitality and presence, and this anthology enables an English-speaking readership to discover and savour these distinctive voices