Qaeda~Qaida~Quida

[A. Maberry]

That would be my guess. I've seen al-Qaida and al-Qaeda but not Quida.
They are all trying to represent q [velar]-a [as in "father" but longer in
duration]-"ayin" [glottal stop not found in English]- i [short as in "it"
but sometimes heard as "e" or schwa- d- a [as in "father" but short-
final -h is silent but present.

The above is probably as clear as mud, as the saying goes.

I heard someone pronounce it correctly last week on NPR but can't remember
who it was.

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu

On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Barnhart wrote:

> These variants are listed in the order in which I found them.  This
> seems to reflect preference in usage.  _Quida_ is noticeably less
> frequent and appears to reflect the customary orthographic traditions
> concerning "q" and "u" in English.  Is there a contrast in tradition of
> transliteration which accounts for "ae" as opposed to "ai"?
>
> Regards,
> David
>
> barnhart at highlands.com
>