Talk:Muammar Qadhafi

Name

With the Libyan head of state back in the news - but for how long? - I think it is worth opening the can of worms of how we are going to spell his name here. If you start a full article, please don't create a metadata page or redirects yet! :)

As a Brit, the one I am most familiar with is 'Muammar Gaddafi', which is what the BBC uses. John Stephenson 09:56, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I myself tend to avoid it by saying "Head of state of Libya" or the like. I have no idea what should be definitive. I'll check, but I don't think the United States intelligence community is always consistent (toward him; nothing else assumed). I could make some phone calls later in the week.

The World Factbook uses Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI, with the strange American bureaucratic convention of capitalizing surnames. I think the Factbook still is in CIA, but the National Open Source Center may be doing something different. Maybe we can agree on his first name. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

'Muammar', yes... we're half-way there. :) There are many complications with the surname due to the differences between various varieties of Arabic, romanisation issues, and how the name may be further anglicised (all three affect the choice of name). Phonetically, it seems to me that English native speakers mostly pronounce it with an initial [g], but [k] seems to pop up more frequently nowadays. The letter in 'Qadhafi' and 'Iraq' reflects a phonological contrast with /k/ in Arabic which does not exist in English - /q/ collapses to /k/ in English. Confusingly, the /q/ phoneme can emerge as a glottal stop, a [k] or a [g] around the Arabic-speaking world.

So, Arabic /q/ is typically transformed into a /k/ in the English phonological system... but unaspirated /k/, in initial position, is usually heard as a /g/ by English speakers, hence the [g] in English 'Gaddafi'. (This is because the /k/-/g/ contrast, in syllable-initial position in English, is really between an aspirated [kʰ], i.e. with an extra puff of air, and a devoiced [g], which in many other languages would be heard as a [k], since it's barely voiced at all. The main difference in English is between aspiration and non-aspiration in this position, rather than voicing per se.) John Stephenson 10:09, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Did I want to hear about aspiration while I have a sore throat? :-)

While this is certainly not my are of expertise, assuming I'm still a part of CZ, I can make some phone calls and emails into US intelligence, and, for that matter, the Department of State. State has the authority for US government place names, but I'm not certain if it's the focal point for personal names. I can also check with the Library of Congress. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I've just done a quick google around my favourite news sites and 'Gaddafi' is almost unanimous. (Wikipedia pedantically sticks in an al-, so we can improve on that...) Ro Thorpe 02:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC) But of course I'm a 'usage rules' guy...