Why Does "Gadaffi" Have Different Spellings?

[Kennah]

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/gadaffi-spelling.aspx

Grammar Girl rocks!

[tabatha]

1. Try this

http://www.spelldictator.com/

[uppityperson]

2. because arabic doesn't translate well or exactly.

[dsc]

3. because we are phonetically spelling a word with sounds that aren't

used in our language. The pronounciation is something between that of a Q and a G.

[Speck Tater]

4. I don't understand why those people don't just use the REAL alphabet.

:sarcasm: <-- Just in case people can't figure out that I'm just kidding.

[JVS]

5. Lack of a convention for transliterating Arabic into the Latin alphabet.

[Freddie Stubbs]

6. It's much easier now:

D-e-a-d

[kestrel91316]

7. The Arabic alphabet and the English alphabet are not one and the same.

His name as we see it, regardless of the spelling, is a TRANSLITERATION. It is spelled phonetically, which depends on the ear and eye of the speller.

[dtexdem]

8. Don't worry -- he doesn't any more.

;-)

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Because the world has not yet had the good sense to embrace Esperanto

[Capitalocracy]

10. It's transliteration.

But I'm guessing it says that in the link I didn't actually click. ;)

[Kennah]

11. From the link I posted - it won't bite

The news reports about Muammar Gadaffi being killed today bring up a more trivial question: why do we see his name spelled so many different ways?

Translating Arab words to English is difficult because the languages use different alphabets and there are no set rules to correlate the Arabic letters to the Latin letters we use in English. When we see Arabic words written in English, they’re actually not a translation, but a transliteration--a representation of how the Arabic words would sound if they were written in the Latin alphabet. Since sounds can be interpreted slightly different ways, you'll see "Gadaffi," "Kadafi," "Qaddafi," and so on.

It’s the same reason you see “Koran” spelled a few different ways in English publications including “Koran,” “Quran,” and “Qur’an.” There isn’t a right or wrong way; it’s a style choice.

Translating from Hebrew has the same problems, which is why there are many acceptable spellings for “Hanukkah.”

[spanone]

12. hoo nose?