Gaddafi, Khaddafy, Kaddafi....

[G-Mac]

How come Moammar has so many different spellings for his last name?????

 

[P&R Fan]

Maybe he's related to Osama bin Laden, or Usama bin Laden.

 

[G-Mac]

Maybe he's related to Osama bin Laden, or Usama bin Laden.

Well, they are both Moslems, or is that Muslims?

 

[redlevel]

Translation from a different (arabic?) alphabet to Roman alphabet. You can't translate using their symbols, just sounds. I think.

 

[Dennis The B]

How come Moammar has so many different spellings for his last name?????

Semite languages, including Arabic and Israeli, don't literally translate into English. Additionally, there are idiomatic differences within the Arabic language. Egyptian Arabic is slightly different from Saudi Arabic, which is different from Yemeni Arabic.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

The letter "G"sounds like the letter "K" in Pig Latin. Other tan that I can't help you.

 

[redlevel]

The late, great Lewis Grizzard said that Quadafi's mama was to blame for him turning out so bad--how do you expect a young'un to overcome being named "Moamar"?

 

[snowman]

Having studied Hebrew in both college and seminary, I can tell you that redlevel's earlier post is about the best way of answering it. The alphabets of Semitic languages(and there are others to which this applies also) are very different than those of the European languages, and the sounds which the letters/characters express often are quite different also. When an Arabic name, for instance, is written in English letters, that is called a transliteration. When a word is transliterated, the letters used are those which most closely match the sounds made in the original language; but often there is more than one letter or combination of letters which may be used. In this example, the sound, in Arabic, which begins the Libyan dictator's last name, may be transliterated by using the English "G", or "Kh", or "Gh", etc. It is a gutteral sound which has no one exact equivalent in the English alphabet. Hence the variations in the print media of the English-speaking world.

Hope that was reasonably clear. I know more about language than I do about Smiths -but I'm gaining a bit with the latter, I think.

Andy

 

[potthawg]

My 2 pesos

The world will be a better place when all three of the Kadaffeys are gone.

Moamar-Larrymar and Curlymar.

 

[Stevens]

No matter how it is spelled he is a madman, and deserves whatever he gets. But, before we feel too much sympathy for those folks we see protesting in the streets remember they were the same ones laughing and dancing for joy as they celebrated:
1986 - The bombing of the Berlin disco, US soldiers hang out
1988 - Pan Am /Lockerbie crash
2001 - 9-11 - Twin Towers
2009 - the recent release of the Lockerbie bomb maker from Scottish prison.

I'm not betting whoever replaces him will be much of a friend to the USA

Steve W.

 

[rock doc]

The world will be a better place when all three of the Kadaffeys are gone.

Moamar-Larrymar and Curlymar.

^^^ This is great

Also, different news organizations use one variation over the others.

 

[monet61]

Name

Having studied Hebrew in both college and seminary, I can tell you that redlevel's earlier post is about the best way of answering it. The alphabets of Semitic languages(and there are others to which this applies also) are very different than those of the European languages, and the sounds which the letters/characters express often are quite different also. When an Arabic name, for instance, is written in English letters, that is called a transliteration. When a word is transliterated, the letters used are those which most closely match the sounds made in the original language; but often there is more than one letter or combination of letters which may be used. In this example, the sound, in Arabic, which begins the Libyan dictator's last name, may be transliterated by using the English "G", or "Kh", or "Gh", etc. It is a gutteral sound which has no one exact equivalent in the English alphabet. Hence the variations in the print media of the English-speaking world.

Hope that was reasonably clear. I know more about language than I do about Smiths -but I'm gaining a bit with the latter, I think.

Andy

Thank you for that. Interesting.

 

[Big Cholla]

The world will be a better place when all three of the Kadaffeys are gone.

Moamar-Larrymar and Curlymar.

ROFLMAO! You Sir have the final word on this situation and in addition you are a real wit. I salute you. ............ Big Cholla

 

[Bullseye 2620]

It's about to be Mo-no-mar.


Bullseye

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

AFAIK there is no standardized or generally accepted system of transliteration/transciption from Arabic to English. There was the older Wade-Giles system used to transcribe Chinese, it has largely been replaced by the pinyin system-Mao Tse Tung vs Mao Zedong, e.g.

 

[ace22]

The world will be a better place when all three of the Kadaffeys are gone.

Moamar-Larrymar and Curlymar.

you do realize that by omiting shempmar you're adding to his inferiority complex of being the lesser known 4th
stoog... er khadaffy.

 

[Pook]

Many years ago some media began spelling his name with a "G" because a group of American school children wrote him a letter (it has been too long to remember the details) to which he (or one of his aides) responded, in English, and spelled his name "Ghadaffi." The newspaper, which as I recall was either the Los Angeles Times or the Orange County Register, ran the story about the school children's letter because the paper explained that it would begin spelling his name with a "G" because that was the English spelling he used.

As an aside, I wonder why he is still a colonel.

 

[bigshot500]

I can think of a better name for this person....deceased, and maybe if we are all lucky it will become part of his ink in the press.

 

[three-five-seven]

To the shores of Tripoli...

History repeats itself and If you all remember your history the Navy and the US Marines tangled with the Libyans about 150 years ago when they were taking our ships and people. Also much more recently did anyone catch Khadafi at the United Nations after Obama got elected? He congratulated the American people for electing a "prince of Kenya". This was on TV. I watched this instead of pro-football or even Tiffany Lakosky. I dont advocate war but maybe a bunch of B52s or A10 Thunderbolts would solve a problem or two.

 

[potthawg]

Oooops!

you do realize that by omiting shempmar you're adding to his inferiority complex of being the lesser known 4th
stoog... er khadaffy.

My apologies for not including poor old Shempmar.
I hope the people of Libya get a change they can believe in.
That "change" thing we're saddled with...not so much. ;-(>