How to spell the Libyan guy's name?

[Mrs. Darcy]

Apparently not.

Maybe she had a bad day and needs a hug. lol

 

[Jennasis]

Maybe she had a bad day and needs a hug. lol

Well then I will hedge my bets...

HUGS FOR EVERYBODY!!






Now back to the topic at hand. I my gut tends to go with the "Kh" spelling, but darn it if my nutty side doesn't want to use the "Q".

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

Khadaffy. That's how I spelled it in high school for some report I had to do. I don't remember where I got the spelling from. Now I see it spelled with a G.

And remember when Osama bin Laden was spelled like that? Now I see it as Usama.

I guess it goes phonetically since the actual correct way is in arabic.

 

[IdesOmarch]

I think Charlie Sheen and Momar Quadafi should have their own reality TV show, now that would be entertaining.

 

[Robinrs]

Well then I will hedge my bets...

HUGS FOR EVERYBODY!!

And a BIG hug to you, you didn't deserve that with all you're going through.

 

[MzDiz]

If you look at the spelling in Arabic, the debated sound (G, Q, K) is the letter "qaf" which looks like a "g" with two dots over it, sounds like a hard "k", and has no English equivalent. If written in English letters, the qaf is always represented by a Q, like in Iraq.

 

[lizabu]

I was nodding along until I got the German part. German is written in the same alphabet as English.

I'm not sure why then that some of my relatives have the last name Dauthe and others Dotte when they are from the same linage...maybe they've changed the spelling on purpose...IDK

 

[walden]

I'm not sure why then that some of my relatives have the last name Dauthe and others Dotte when they are from the same linage...maybe they've changed the spelling on purpose...IDK

German does have some differences in the alphabet. Example: my DH's family had German umlaut "ü" in their name. On immigration, some family members replaced it with a "ue" to replicate the sound, and some just kept the "u" without the dots. So eighty years later different branches of the same US family spell and pronounce the name differently, either as **"ewg"** or **"ug"**.

 

[Bi-winning]

Well of course, there is one way to spell it that there are no disagreements on.

معمر القذافي‎

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

I think Charlie Sheen and Momar Quadafi should have their own reality TV show, now that would be entertaining.

Isn't that spelled Moumar?

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

Well of course, there is one way to spell it that there are no disagreements on.

معمر القذافي‎

 

[perdidochas]

I'm getting mightily frustrated! Every news source seems to have it different. I've seen it spelled Khaddafy, Gaddafi, Qaddafi, and any myriad of combinations. And let's not even worry about how his first name is.

So can we, here on the DIS reach a consensus? How do you spell his name??

It's an Arabic name, exact English versions are hard to make. I prefer Qaddafi or Quaddaffi myself.

 

[perdidochas]

My DH is middle eastern and when he came here the guy at immigration sounded out his arabic name into our english alphabet. A year later his brother came over and the same thing happened. The result = their last names are spelled differently. Basically they have their own alphabet and the only thing as english speakers we can do is sound it out using the letters of our alphabet. There are some letters in our language which sound the same like Q or K that's why we see his name spelled differently. Basically there isn't a correct spelling of his name in english. There is only our intrepretation of what his name would be in our language. This happens to people from other countries too. Like I know a couple German people with the same names who ended up with different spellings just based on our alphabet.

Arabic problems make sense. They have a different alphabet. German problems don't. They use the same alphabet (except for a few letters) and there are standard ways to spell those using "English" letters (or keyboard). For example, the o with umlaut (two dots over o) is usually spelled oe if you don't have umlauts on your keyboard.

 

[FireDancer]

Dude? My DH would have issue with that.

I'm sure she is sorry for calling you dude, ma'am.

 

[Jennasis]

I'm sure she is sorry for calling you dude, ma'am.

Thanks dude!

 

[NotUrsula]

Well, just for the official US Goverment English-language version, I give you the entry from the Library of Congress Name Authority database.

The decision is: Qaddafi, Muammar

Look here if you'd like to see the 53 translitered alternative versions of the name that LoC decided NOT to use: http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/...10303153646&PID=Q-hS6VyAxQBMfka1zeTXmrDy5aWxv (AND also the nine possible Arabic variations.)

(And yes, that database is obscure, but the cross-refernces it contains are hugely important for letting you actually FIND the things that you are looking for when you search in a library. We cross-link all the alternatives so that you don't have to check them.)