Mwalimu Bangura, which spelling is officially approved by the academie pan-Afrikaine?Pius
It is tempting to link the complex life of Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, to the noticeable plurality in the spelling of his name. Gaddafi is many things to many people: to some Arab muslims, a hero and saviour; to some Libyans, a hypocrite and dictator; to the West, a sponsor of terrorism; to some haters of America, a courageous icon of resistance and promise of a balance of power; et cetera. Indeed, the Libyan dictator enjoys having this controversial status in world politics and would always try to exploit it whenever the need arises. Many commentators writing about Gaddafi also choose from the several possible spellings of that name, a textual predicament that tends to create a mythical figure out of the referent. ABC News blog records that there are 112 various ways to spell the name (just as the Library of Congress records 72), with the following as examples: Muammar Qaddafi, Muammar Al-Gathafi, Muammar al-Qadhafi, Mu'ammar Al Qathafi, Moamar El Gaddafi, Moammar El Kadhafi, Moamer El Kazzafi, Mu'Ammar El Qathafi, Muammar Gadafi, Moamar Gaddafi, Mo'ammar Gadhafi, Muammar Gathafi, Muammar Ghadafi, Muammar Ghaddafi, Muammar Ghaddafy, Muammar Gheddafi, Muhammar Gheddafi, Momar Kadaffi, Mouammar Kadhafi, Muammar Al-Gathafi, Muammar al-Khaddafi, Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi, Mulazim Awwal Mu'ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi, Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi, Omar Mouammer Al Gaddafi, Omar Muammar Al Ghaddafi, and Omar Muammar Gaddafi. This is really a maze! Which one would my editor prefer? Surely, his name in its many spellings is democratic and guarantees freedom of choice in identifying him, but the man himself is not! Both ABCnews.com and TIME.com attribute the diversity in the spelling of the name to discrepancies in the translation and transliteration of Arabic. But TIME.com provides a deeper insight by explaining that 'Gaddafi (Google's most frequent spelling) is spelled القذافي in Arabic. The first letter "ق," qoph, is pronounced as a "k" sound and usually transliterated as a "q." Likewise, the second letter of his name, thal, "ذ," is pronounced as a deep "d" or "th" ("the" not "with") and transliterated "dh." Given these standardized spellings, the Libyan leader's name should be spelled "Qadhafi."' Furthers there is a dialectal factor in the realization of "q" as "g": "The reason the most common spelling of Gaddafi begins with a "g" is due to the Libyan dialect, which pronounces qoph like a "g" sound. English translations of Arabic leaders' names generally are consistent with their local dialects, rather than standard translation. The best example of this would be late Egyptian leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. His first name beginning with a jim "ج" would be traditionally transliterated Jamal. Instead, the Egyptian pronunciation of his name is the norm for English transliteration." Beyond this linguistic variability, there are also preferences made by media organisations, which means that anyone writing for a particular newspaper or television has to conform to a prescribed in-house choice. Surely, using a strictly Arabic spelling is not the same as sticking to a rather Westernized form. In the same way, including or omitting "al" or "el" and "Omar" is a stylistic and semiotic consideration that may suggest a writer's posture to the subject. Perhaps one should just push over the problem of deciding the "appropriate" spelling of the controversial Libyan leader's name to the house editor and not succumb to the temptation of imposing spellings of the name as marketed by CNN, BBC, and Aljazeera, on readers. Is it not enough to live with an accusation that African media have had to depend on Western interpretations of the Libyan dictator's problematic image? On the side of playfulness – and perhaps with some admiration for the bearer – some commentators also try to rewrite "Gaddafi" as "Gadfly," as if the sound is also the sense within and across languages. Thrilled by this, I have started searching my books to find out if his name is spelled "God-a-fi" anywhere, to accommodate the image of a god that he is fast acquiring! God-a-fis and gadflies go together in a modern "Hannibalization" of North Africa and the Mediterranean. Does it matter if this imagined "gadfly" has become a bloodsucking tsetse fly that knows how to make its victim relax while it drinks its blood and gives it a sleeping sickness? Listen to the anti-Western propaganda that the gadfly now uses in trying to cast another spell over the Arab and Muslim world. Even if the images of this dictator marketed on Western and other media are distorted, gadfly has over-reached its capacity for casting rhetorical spells and knows that it is its turn to be expelled from its hold on Libya and the Arab world. - |
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