Ed Dawkins on Allahu Akhbar

[theprestige]

While true... 'Allahu akbar' is stil Arabic, even when written in the Latin alphabet. It doesn't suddenly turn ino English (which would be God/Allah is greater/the greatest). So, while English doesn't (generally) have the guttural 'kh' sound, and in English 'k' and 'kh' would both be pronounced as 'k'... we're talking about Arabic here, and there are rules/guidelines for transliteration.

So no, even though Dawkins speaks English, and English is written in the Latin alphabet, and it's possible to write Arabic with the same alphabet as English, akbar is not the same as akhbar.

They're semantically identical. In spoken English, they're even vocally identical.

It's like those people who refuse to have a conversation about Genghis Khan, because nobody by that name ever existed. Chingis Khan, on the other hand, was totally a real historical figure. Or the whole, "it's not Bombay, it's Mumbai!" thing.

Potato, potato.

 

[alfaniner]

They're semantically identical. In spoken English, they're even vocally identical.

It's like those people who refuse to have a conversation about Genghis Khan, because nobody by that name ever existed. Chingis Khan, on the other hand, was totally a real historical figure. Or the whole, "it's not Bombay, it's Mumbai!" thing.

Potato, potato.

So, how do you feel about Peking Duck?

 

[Roboramma]

So, how do you feel about Peking Duck?

I would guess that as many people in China would understand what you wanted if you asked for "Peking Duck" as "Beijing Duck". Sure, more would understand 北京烤鸭，but people who know the english word "duck" would likely know that it was called "Peking Duck" or be able to guess that you meant "Beijing" when you said "Peking".

I mean, the accents of people from different parts of China, when speaking Mandarin, make bigger changes to words than the difference between Peking and Beijing. And getting the tone wrong can make you much harder to understand than changing a "b" to a "p" or a "g" to a "k".

 

[theprestige]

So, how do you feel about Peking Duck?

Are you asking me, or axing me?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

And yet everyone reading his tweet knew what he meant when he wrote it.

I don't think there's an important or meaningful point to be made with respect to spelling here.

That Dawkins is incredibly ignorant of basic orthographic features of the language he whines about?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

They're semantically identical. In spoken English, they're even vocally identical.

It's like those people who refuse to have a conversation about Genghis Khan, because nobody by that name ever existed. Chingis Khan, on the other hand, was totally a real historical figure. Or the whole, "it's not Bombay, it's Mumbai!" thing.

Potato, potato.

Genghis Khan is simply a terrible romanization for English. I believe it comes from French where at one point he was referred to as "Genghiscan".

Iranologists use Chingiz, Sinologists Qinggis, Mongolists Chinggis. All of these are superior within accepted conventions for those languages.

 

[Zivan]

The distinction between k and kh in one language doesn't necessarily have to be maintained when writing into a language that does not make that distinction.

Yes it does.

أخبار (akhbar) and اکبر (akbar) are two different words with two different meanings.

So yes, how they are transliterated does make a difference.

They're semantically identical. In spoken English, they're even vocally identical.

So it is okay with you to write "loch" as "lock"?

"Lock Ness" is okay with you? And is no different than "Loch Ness"?

 

[theprestige]

Genghis Khan is simply a terrible romanization for English. I believe it comes from French where at one point he was referred to as "Genghiscan".

Iranologists use Chingiz, Sinologists Qinggis, Mongolists Chinggis. All of these are superior within accepted conventions for those languages.

Superior in what sense?

Who decides which alternate spellings are good, and which are bad?

Allowing Q and Ch but rejecting G just seems like pretentious crap to me.

 

[zooterkin]

Genghis Khan is simply a terrible romanization for English. I believe it comes from French where at one point he was referred to as "Genghiscan".

Iranologists use Chingiz, Sinologists Qinggis, Mongolists Chinggis. All of these are superior within accepted conventions for those languages.

And in English, he's known as Genghis Khan.

 

[theprestige]

It's tramp stamps all around, really.

 

[Roboramma]

That Dawkins is incredibly ignorant of basic orthographic features of the language he whines about?

But those features have nothing to do with the point that he was making, so any discussion of his ignorance of them tells us anything about the validity of his comment.

I actually find his tweet pretty weird. Having heard both church bells and the call to prayer, I find both very beautiful, and his later "clarification" that he meant terrorists doesn't seem to make any sense.

But none of the issues with what he said has anything to do with spelling.

 

[ddt]

So it is okay with you to write "loch" as "lock"?

"Lock Ness" is okay with you? And is no different than "Loch Ness"?

These locks maybe, at the southern end of Loch Ness?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

And in English, he's known as Genghis Khan.

Really? My edition of "The Mongols", 2nd ed., by David Morgan, probably the most widely used introduction to the subject, uses "Chingiz" and "Chinggis", the latter in an addendum to the 2nd ed at the end where he notes that it is the preferred spelling of Mongolists and the recommended spelling in academia. Maybe you have a more authoritative text?

 

[Zivan]

These locks maybe, at the southern end of Loch Ness?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Superior in what sense?

Who decides which alternate spellings are good, and which are bad?

Allowing Q and Ch but rejecting G just seems like pretentious crap to me.

Q is the standard transliteration of that sound in Chinese and has been forever. E.g. "Qing Dynasty, "Qin Shi Huang". Ch is the accepted transliteration for roughly the same sound in Persian and Mongolian.

"Genghis" has three problems. One, most English speakers pronounces G in a voiced manner. But the Mongolian consonant is unvoiced (that is, it's tsh, not dsh), whereas Ch in standard English (as in "chill") and Q according to long-standing convention in transliterating Chinease do. Second, "e" does not even approximate the right vowel here. Third, "ngh" does not as easily convey the middle consonant cluster, which is "ng-g", though I believe most English speakers still get this right.

It's just a bad and incoherent way of writing.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

And yet everyone reading his tweet knew what he meant when he wrote it.

indeed. Muslims are bad and I dont like them was the clear message whatever his missteps in language.


with an added helping of 'im a bigoted old man who is an Oxbridge education away from gammon status'

 

[Roboramma]

Really? My edition of "The Mongols", 2nd ed., by David Morgan, probably the most widely used introduction to the subject, uses "Chingiz" and "Chinggis", the latter in an addendum to the 2nd ed at the end where he notes that it is the preferred spelling of Mongolists and the recommended spelling in academia. Maybe you have a more authoritative text?

Don't look for an authoritative source on the spelling (or pronunciation) of a word in English, look at usage. I think you'll find that Genghis is the most common usage (my computer's spellcheck is pretty happy with it).

I mean do you argue with people about the spelling of "Jesus"?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Don't look for an authoritative source on the spelling (or pronunciation) of a word in English, look at usage. I think you'll find that Genghis is the most common usage (my computer's spellcheck is pretty happy with it).

I mean do you argue with people about the spelling of "Jesus"?

Jesus is an anglification. I have actually argued with people regarding which of the common Latin spellings should be chosen as representative (Iesus, Ihesus, Iehsus, etc), my stance being that the h stems from medieval scribes misreading the eta in Ιησούς.

Genghis, however, is not an English name, nor a good representation of the name in ANY source language. It's frankly borderline chauvinistic to be so dismissive toward the source languages and those who spend their lives studying them.

 

[zooterkin]

Really? My edition of "The Mongols", 2nd ed., by David Morgan, probably the most widely used introduction to the subject, uses "Chingiz" and "Chinggis", the latter in an addendum to the 2nd ed at the end where he notes that it is the preferred spelling of Mongolists and the recommended spelling in academia. Maybe you have a more authoritative text?

50+ years experience of living in England, listening to the media, reading papers and talking to people. I'm not talking about academia, I'm talking about everyday English. In the same way that English people talk about Munich (though the pronunciation of that has changed over the years) rather than Muenchen; it's an English name for a place or person of foreign origin.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

50+ years experience of living in England, listening to the media, reading papers and talking to people. I'm not talking about academia, I'm talking about everyday English. In the same way that English people talk about Munich (though the pronunciation of that has changed over the years) rather than Muenchen; it's an English name for a place or person of foreign origin.

Except it's not an English word, it's a Mongolian word meaning "Oceanic"; Chinggis Khan means "Oceanic Ruler", where the "Ocean" in question is probably China (his name was Temüjin, 'man of iron'). Compare Dalai Lama, "Oceanic Teacher", or something along those lines. In every other case of a Mongol or Turkic warlord with a Khan title, an attempt is made to approximate the foreign word. Seeing "Genghis" next to "Khubilai", "Hülegu", and "Möngke", nobody's going to think, "Oh, Genghis is an English word, it's not meant to approximate the Mongolian spelling or pronunciation."

Why get so hung up about a poorly representative spelling stemming from ignorance rather than taking heed of what those who study this for a living say? With how much cultural erasure Anglophone histories have engaged in, a minimum show of respect can be made by opting for a spelling that is reoresentative of the word's origin. Don't appropriate unnecessarily.