Al your Qa'ida are belong to us

I'm a geek and feel like giving an Arabic lesson to you all, cus I like giving lessons and we talked about this word for an hour in Arabic class today. And because, I'll admit, I thought there just ought to be a thread with the above name.

First of all,
If you're one of those people who prounces Al-Qa'ida like it's "al-kayda" (and you probably are) then you are wrong. The "Qa" sounds like the first syllable of "coffee". That little ' in the middle is a glottal stop and means that you stop the flow of breath in the middle of the word. the "ida" sounds like the end of "Canada".

When you say it wrong the Arab world thinks you are retarded because you are saying a different thing.

And please don't say "the al-qa'ida" cus the "al" means "the". You can probably say "the qa'ida" if you want, but just leaving out the English deffinate article and using the al- is probably better.

And Qa'ida means "base" as in a foundation for something and it can mean a military base. To many Arabic speakers, a "qa'ida al-amrikia" is just as bad as Osama's is to us.

Anyways. Yeah. Now you are an expert on that word and you can impress your geeky friends at parties and I have my thread with that title.

[Edited on Feb 08, 2005 by Dave_H]

liberal.

My tax dollars at work. *salutes*

indeed.

fascist.

Only at work.

I know how you feel.

I'm all for pronouncing things correctly. I applaud you sir.

However.

Pray tell, how does the average speaker of Arabic pronounce "America"?

Shayton!





just kidding. little arabic humour there.

ha ha.

uh... they do it wrong. They're retarded too. Pretty much everyone is retarded at something.

(Shayton = Satan)

Emphasis on the first or second syllable?

A valliant effort, but you're tilting at windmills. I've had the same conversation many times and no one can manage to internalize it.

This thread has gone on long enough without someone adding, "someone set us up the bomb."

you should be starting bigger than al-qa'ida;

say it with me now

fell-ooooo-juh

how would you like it if people up and started pronouncing it kneewaerk (NYC), or lasanklez (LA)

Zing.

in qa'ida? the first.

in shayton? the second.

This thread brings a little tear to this linguist's eye.

Remember when Pres. George the First intentionally mis-pronounced Saddam so it meant something like 'goat herder' instead of 'illustrious leader'?

Anyway, I just don't trust anyone who gets all gutteral with the pronounciation. Kinda like the way a rapper (of any ethnicity, by the way) who says 'Ask' instead of 'Aks" loses his street cred...not to be trusted.

this is so much more useful than the Arabic you tried to teach me while I was drunk.... I can bookmark this and check back when I'm sober....

Yessir, the naked girls bring me here but the fair and unbiased no-name-calling debate at the Current Events board keeps me coming back!

I tried to say Al-Qa'ida the right way, according to Dave_H. But it took too much effort, so I'm going to stick to "al-kayda". That's right, I'm another one of those lazy American pigs.

I pronounce it asshats, myself.

edited because i was tired.

[Edited on Feb 09, 2005 by louys]

As in the pause before the second syllable in 'Ut-oh' (/u.'oh/) or at the end of the first syllable in 'Batman' (/ba'. man/). Just wanted to clarify that further.

[Edited on Feb 09, 2005 by Jeff_Fries]

is it just me or is the correct way really hard to say?

How about we just call them toast

One might say that the correct way is an aural displeasure