What is your favorite spelling of Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi's surname?

[nvpacchi]

just for fun, you are allowed to choose more than 1

 

[nvpacchi]

Also see if you can get all 31...

http://www.sporcle.com/games/SporcleEXP/Gadaffi

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

What, no choice for "C-h-a-r-l-i-e S-h-e-e-n"?

 

[L'arriviste]

Mwahaha McQuaid.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

مُعَمَّر ٱلْقَذَّافِيّ‎ is his name.

The ق is transcribed as 'q' most often. The ع in his first name is a sound we don't have in most European languages, a laryngeal fricative transcribed ʕ. The ذ is pronounced ð, like the th in 'the' (there are two, a dental and a retroflex version of this sound, but I have forgotten which is which as I cannot differentiate them in speech). This is often transcribed with dh or dd.

Hence in Classical Arabic, he is "Muʕam'ar al-Qaðˤaafii".

Once Libyan Arabic variations are taken into account, that's where the G for Gaddafi comes from. Also, the /θ ð ðˤ/ series of fricatives (in the th sense) have merged with their plosive counterparts /t d dˤ/, hence pronouncing Gaddafi with a hard D.

So the myriad different spellings depend on whether they are using standard Arabic transcription or a phonetic transcription of Libyan Arabic.

Sorry to be so serious!

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

What, no choice for "C-h-a-r-l-i-e S-h-e-e-n"?

Muammar Godawful is not that crazy

 

[nvpacchi]

مُعَمَّر ٱلْقَذَّافِيّ‎ is his name.

The ق is transcribed as 'q' most often. The ع in his first name is a sound we don't have in most European languages, a laryngeal fricative transcribed ʕ. The ذ is pronounced ð, like the th in 'the' (there are two, a dental and a retroflex version of this sound, but I have forgotten which is which as I cannot differentiate them in speech). This is often transcribed with dh or dd.

Hence in Classical Arabic, he is "Muʕam'ar al-Qaðˤaafii".

Once Libyan Arabic variations are taken into account, that's where the G for Gaddafi comes from. Also, the /θ ð ðˤ/ series of fricatives (in the th sense) have merged with their plosive counterparts /t d dˤ/, hence pronouncing Gaddafi with a hard D.

So the myriad different spellings depend on whether they are using standard Arabic transcription or a phonetic transcription of Libyan Arabic.

Sorry to be so serious!

I knew it was only a matter of time until this post was written

Always interesting insight

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The variants of Arabic are really very different, similar to the way Latin transcription changed over the years. I think we are on our way to talking of very specific Arabic languages held together by the classical language. I only did one year of Arabic, and the differences between the classical stuff we learnt and the dialectal things we learnt was significant.

It was also interesting meeting a friend of a friend who had also done a year of Arabic. However, she had done Moroccan Arabic while I had done Lebanese Arabic, and both of us had only done the one year of learning so communication was nigh on impossible.

 

[craig1985]

Just how many languages do you speak Libertine, BTW?

 

[Master50]

I'd like to see it spelled D-E-C-E-A-S-E-D.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Just how many languages do you speak Libertine, BTW?

Not many with any fluency. But I have a bit of foundation knowledge in quite a few and with a background in historical linguistics can explain why changes happen (and can make educated guesswork as to what things in languages related to ones I know mean).

For the record, I have a shelf of language materials at home, which includes material on the following languages:

Arabic
Basque
Czech
Dutch
English
French
German
Greek
Icelandic
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Sorbian
Spanish
Yiddish

Some of these languages I know little more than basic expressions in (if that), but the material is there in case it was useful, because it was a bargain, because of academic purposes, or simply because it looked interesting (Icelandic, I'm looking at you here... never got anywhere with that!) because of historical-linguistic reasons.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Not many with any fluency. But I have a bit of foundation knowledge in quite a few and with a background in historical linguistics can explain why changes happen (and can make educated guesswork as to what things in languages related to ones I know mean).

For the record, I have a shelf of language materials at home, which includes material on the following languages:

Arabic
Basque
Czech
Dutch
English
French
German
Greek
Icelandic
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Sorbian
Spanish
Yiddish

Some of these languages I know little more than basic expressions in (if that), but the material is there in case it was useful, because it was a bargain, because of academic purposes, or simply because it looked interesting (Icelandic, I'm looking at you here... never got anywhere with that!) because of historical-linguistic reasons.

Impressive. If you don't mind my asking, what is your academic training in?
Me... Google translater

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Linguistics and German.

 

[on3m@n@rmy]

Just some German expressions for me