The Historical Alphabet/Qalam
Discovering something new about the world in which our ancestors lived—and our own today—is a truly exciting experience! To share this joy with our readers, the Qalam editorial staff, together with the technology company Citix @citix.me, has created a fascinating project of important and interesting historical facts collected in an alphabet. You can now see them on Citix city smartboards and read more on our website.
Ğaqlia
A Treatise with Teachings
This is a didactic genre of writing aimed at teaching proper behavior. The instructions are given in both verse and prose, either directly or through parables. For example, the famous ğaqlia is The Book of Words by Abai Qunanbaiuly, where most of the rules of morality are presented through parables, each followed by thoughtful conclusions and reasoning. The name of the genre comes from Arabic, but in a formal sense, it includes all edifying short stories and all kinds of ‘mirrors of honor for the youth’. For example, The Honorable Mirror for Youth is a Russian collection of admonitions to young people, published in the early eighteenth century. Even the ancient hieroglyphs of the Egyptians and the cuneiform writing of the Mesopotamians contain texts for which the definition of ğaqlia is quite appropriate.
Abay Kunanbayev (Abai), Kazakh poet, composer and philosopher. His major work is The Book of Words/Alamy
