Abu Graib

[Orin Hargraves]

>===== Original Message From American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
=====
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Peter A. McGraw" <pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: Abu Graib
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
>
>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.
>
I haven't seen the word in Arabic with all of its vowel markings, but given
the usual transliteration, I suspect that the terminal vowel sound is the
Arabic diphthong formed by short vowel "fatha" (close to "a" in dad) followed
by the long vowel "ya" (=English "long e"). In speech it's pretty close to
[ai]. But since we only approximate the prons of the consonants, doing
likewise with the vowels seems sensible.

Orin Hargraves