Parts One and Two of the Josh Marshall interview of Al Qaeda expert Peter Bergen a worth a read.
Josh is spelling Al Qaeda differently: Al Qaida. For my sake, could someone post all the different spellings of the name and explain why they are different (paging Dr. Weevil). This new world is confusing. We didn’t have to fight Nasis, Nazis, and Nahtzees, or Kommunists, communists, or calmunists, so this whole spelling thing is really killing me.
Chris
What about “columnists” like Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman? :)
Mike
Hey John – have you noticed how much Kaddafy/Gadaffy/Gaddafy/Khaddafy/Kggbzzthhhahaadaffyi has been in the news lately?
Starshatterer
John–
I can’t post all the spellings, but I can tell you why they exist: there is no standard English transliteration for a whole bunch of Arabic sounds. The whole Ghaddafi/Khaddafy/Qadafi spelling-soup is an attempt to render in English an Arabic consonant which does not come naturally to native English speakers. The same problem did not exist rendering Latin-alphabet German words into Latin-alphabet English.
Dean Esmay
What Starshatterer said.
I have long wished someone would come up with a way to standardize the transliterations anyway, but it seems a monumental undertaking.
On the other hand, there’s one huge bonus: you can almost never misspell an Arab name or word! ;-)
O. F. Jay
You forgot “columnists,” John. :P As for what dean esmay said… hmmm. I think the bonus is that you get to misspell any Arab name or word. I doubt they’d take offense though.
scott h.
T.E. Lawrence once had a hilarious correspondence with the publisher of one of his books because he spelt his names “anyhow, to show what rot the systems are”, so the publisher tried to sort out the inconsistencies.
Some of the questions:
Q: The Bisaita is also spelt Biseita.
A: Good.
Q: Jedha, the she-camel, was Jedhah on Slip 40.
A: She was a splendid beast.
Q: Sherif Abd el Mayin of Slip 68 becomes el Main, el Mayein, el Muein, el Mayin, and el Muyein.
A: Good egg. I call this really ingenious.
Kurt Montandon
The same problem arises from transliteration of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese characters, especially the Chinese. There’ve been various broad-based efforts at standardiz-
ation, but nobody can agree on just one.
And the CIA Factbook/documents gives the fomer ruler of Iraq’s name as Saddam Husayn, a certain terrorists name as Usama bin Ladin, and the name of the terrorist organization he leads as al-Qa’ida.
Kimmitt
The Lawrence anecdote is marvelous, but I’m more than a little disturbed that someone who doesn’t even know that Arabic uses a different alphabet for which there are no standard transliterations is holding forth on what the US should be doing in the Middle East.
John Cole
Kimmit, you snide twerp, I am well aware there is a different alphabet. What I wanted to know is why there is no agreed upon exchange, not if there is one. The media is quite good at standardization of other issues- why has there been no attempt for standardization here…
Also, since it is clear that this bounced off your ample forehead (again), this was a joke.
IN the future, whever you expound on any topic regarding foreign affairs, I expect a lengthy dissertation on the alphabet of the region before I will even read your musings..
Robin Roberts
I expect you to enforce that rule against him John.
Kimmitt
2 corrections:
1) My name is spelled with two t’s.
2) Also not a twerp.
Snideness, however, I must plead to. For example, when I say the following: “It’s not like the average conservative needs an excuse to simply ignore any statement with which he does not agree, so I feel quite comfortable with my ongoing assessment that you’re one of the most intellectually honest and subtle of the bunch,” the remark can only be interpreted as a snide comeback.
What can I say? It’s a coping mechanism for dealing with the theocratic fascist idiots who run this country. See, there it went again. I’m incorrigible.
David Perron
Ah, so Kimmitt’s reverted to being a mere troll, again. Do us a favor: let us know when you want us to take you seriously.
John Cole
I guess this is KimmitT’s way of winning hearts and minds- find a website where you disagree with the host but are always treated fairly, and then make obnoxious comments about the host- insinuating that he iseither stupid or a fascist idiot.
Seems to be Dean’s approach to running for President, too.
David Perron
But John, you have voted Republican, haven’t you? From there it’s an inescapable conclusion that you’re mentally deficient, coupled with an irrepressible urge to achieve success on the backs of poor brown people.
bg
The AP uses al qaida systematically. I can’t comment on the other spellings. Most newspapers use AP style too – that’s what it’s for – to get everyone used to one style, spelling, etc.
However, other media outlets, like NYT and the Christian Science Monitor use their own styles, and that likely accounts for some differences.
In academia, most humanities use MLA (except history, which uses Chicago Style) and most sciences use APA and I’d bet that there are differences between their spellings of al qaida as well.
Kimmitt
Okay, hang on a damn minute. I really was kind of disturbed by the fact that you didn’t seem to know some basic facts about a region which you discussed regularly here. You replied that you knew significantly more facts than was obvious from your posts and that I was being a prick for being disturbed.
Then I attempted to say something kind of funny and used hyperbole, finally implying that the President and his Administration were fascist idiots.
You replied that I was calling you a fascist idiot.
I understand that text is an imprecise medium at best, but can we all please try to tell the difference between posts which are serious (for example, the ones which reference actual bills in Congress) and ones which involve a certain amount of attempts at humor, even hyperbole?
Finally, I’m not really here to “win hearts and minds.” I’m here to get my assumptions consistently challenged by someone who disagrees with me and is willing to back up his assertions. Am I in the wrong place?
Kimmitt
Okay, hang on a damn minute. I really was kind of disturbed by the fact that you didn’t seem to know some basic facts about a region which you discussed regularly here. You replied that you knew significantly more facts than was obvious from your posts and that I was being a prick for being disturbed.
Then I attempted to say something kind of funny and used hyperbole, finally implying that the President and his Administration were fascist idiots.
You replied that I was calling you a fascist idiot.
I understand that text is an imprecise medium at best, but can we all please try to tell the difference between posts which are serious (for example, the ones which reference actual bills in Congress) and ones which involve a certain amount of attempts at humor, even hyperbole?
Finally, I’m not really here to “win hearts and minds.” I’m here to get my assumptions consistently challenged by someone who disagrees with me and is willing to back up his assertions. Am I in the wrong place?
Kimmitt
Sorry about the double post; there was some sort of strange error.
John Cole
It double posts some times for no reason- If you get the error message, don’t worry, it got posted. No need to post again.
Kimmitt- Did you really think I was that stupid? Did the poster who added columnists to the CALMUNIST and KOMMUNIST part not make you think we were joking?
Chris Lawrence
I suspect Fox uses the different spellings just to annoy people, as none of the other U.S.-based news organizations seem to follow their transliteration.
The funny thing is that the people who spell it Usama pronounce it differently from those who spell it Osama. Clearly there is (and should be) one correct pronunciation, even if we can’t have a unique transliteration.
Same goes for Pinyin versus all the other transliterations of Chinese (Wade-Giles?).
Dean
Chris Lawrence:
Wade-Giles, the older transliteration approach, used odd combinations of letters. It may also not have been based on the Beijing dialect (the basis for “Mandarin”, “normal talk” [PRC], “national language” [Taiwan]).
Indeed, given its British (iirc) origins, Wade-Giles may well be based on Cantonese (thus, the transliteration “Kee” for what is pronounced in Beijing as “ji”), since the British presence was centered on Hong Kong in the south.
Pinyin, introduced by the Chinese Communists, seeks to establish a standard transliteration, based on the Beijing dialect.
This may be why there are different pronunciations and transliterations in other languages, since I suspect that Arabic also has local “dialects,” or at least accents.
David Perron
The newer approach also uses odd combinations, but those combinations are consistent (in my limited exposure) and translate to specific sounds. Not necessarily sounds you’d get right on the first or fifth try, but “Guangzhou” is a LOT closer to the actual pronunciation than “Canton” (dunno; this might be a bad example). And Beijing is nearly exactly how you actually pronounce it. Peking isn’t.
That said, I don’t really speak much more Mandarin than “Ni hao!”
The point about dialects is well-taken. Cantonese sounds like a completely different language than Mandarin, although I understand the written language is the same.