ginormous (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:26 AM -0500 7/12/07, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>Does anyone happen to know why the Q is chosen for the K sound in many
>Arabic to English transliterations? Was K the preferred letter in the past
>(some older texts seem to use K more)?
>
>Scot

As I understand it, the Q reflects a voiceless uvular stop,
phonemically distinct in Arabic from the velar K; in the old days,
the two were merged by transcription systems that didn't respect the
Arabic distinction.  If that's true, there should be other Ks in
modern transcription systems for the non-uvuvlar variety.  (Note that
even in the older systems with their "Koran"s and "Kaddafi"s, you
already had "Iraq".)

LH

>
>
>>From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>Subject: Re: ginormous (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:38:36 -0500
>>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>>Subject:      Re: ginormous (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>>Caveats: NONE
>>
>>
>>
>>>   Note the problem with spelling Al Kaida, Al
>>>  Kaeda.  I wonder who orchestrated the switch to the spelling Al Kaeda?
>>>
>>>  Tom Zurinskas,
>>
>>
>>What switch?  Neither USA Today, LA Times, Wash Post, NY Times,
>>Associated Press, CNN spell it that way -- all seem to use "Al Qaeda"
>>Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
>>Caveats: NONE
>>
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