Abu Graib

[Peter A. McGraw]

Come to think of it, though, I think the original questioner was asking
whether the ai in Ghraib indicated [ai] or [e:].  I've wondered the same
thing, and the ay in Ghurayb has the same ambiguity.

Peter Mc.

--On Tuesday, May 25, 2004 12:17 PM -0700 "Allen D. Maberry"
<maberry at U.WASHINGTON.EDU> wrote:

> The Slate article is accurate as to the pronunciation. However Abu Ghraib
> is a phonetic spelling for the place name which is found in most
> gazetteers as Abu Ghurayb. The "u" is short and unaccented and so tends
> to drop out in spoken language.
>
> allen
> maberry at u.washington.edu
>
>
>
> On Tue, 25 May 2004, Baker, John wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> ----------------------- Sender:       American Dialect Society
>> <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Abu Graib
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------
>>
>>         There's an article on the pronunciation of "Abu Ghraib" at
>>         http://slate.msn.com/id/2100290/, which says that the proper
>>         pronunciation sounds something like a French person using a
>>         rolling "r" to render "grehhb." Apparently it's an Iraqi place
>>         name, and non-Iraqi Arabs are likely to mispronounce it.
>>
>> John Baker
>>



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************