I’m Wrong About ‘Nakba.’ The Spelling, Anyway

by Philip Weiss on January 23, 2008 · 18 comments

Dan Sisken of Mideast Brief has corrected my spelling of the Arabic word "nakba," referring to the disaster of ‘48. I spelled it "naqba."

I think it's important to try to use accurate transliterations of Arabic.
It should be "Nakba" and not "Naqba." Using the Q in this instance follows
a very common Israeli mistake. There is an Arabic letter that is often
transliterated using Q (as in Al-Qahira for Cairo or Al-Qa'ida), but in
the word Nakba, it's a straight "K" that corresponds with the K in English.

Same thing happens in the words Hamas and Hizbullah. Israelis tend to
say "the Khamas" or "the Khizbullah" using a sound like the kh in
German. To be sure, Arabic does have that letter/sound, but that
letter is not used in Hamas or Hizbullah.

It's hard to articulate why I feel strongly about this. Maybe it has
to do with the possibility that using a more alien word or sound
distances the American or western reader from the reality. Or maybe
I'd rather that we use the Arab-informed transliterations instead of
letting Israelis define these terms.


Thanks, Dan.

Related posts:

  1. I Was Wrong About Columbia’s ‘Lionpac’’s Offer for Nakba Dialogue
  2. Non-Arab Nakba Awareness Hits New High: the Associated Press!
  3. At N.Y. Nakba Event, Some Light at the End of the Tunnel, Inshallah
  4. Jeffrey Goldberg says ‘nakba’ never happened
  5. NYT Uses ‘Nakba’ 34 Times in 10 Years

{ 18 comments }

1 Jherky Boy January 23, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Yeah, since the Arabs are the most illiterate dopes in the world (https://www.e2mevents002.com/client/viewEvent.do?alias=IIE2007)
it's really important that we write like them too. Good point.

They beat their wives to death, too. Should we add that to your pan-ethnic list, Dayn?

2 Concerned January 23, 2008 at 3:47 pm

Will there also be a museum for the 800,000 Jews expelled from their homes in Morocco, Iraq, and Syria?

3 Jherky Boy January 23, 2008 at 4:14 pm

If the Ay-Rabs did not want to get their asses kicked, they shouldn't have attacked.

Yeah, getting your ass-kicked when you attack is a real "catastrophe"

4 Daveg January 23, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Yeah, and there is no history here. Non at all.

5 Michael Blaine January 23, 2008 at 5:24 pm

From an earlier post:

"In its own long-term interests, the U.S. Holocaust Museum ought to be fully privatized."

Geez! I thought it was!!

Must US taxpayers fund a reminder to crimes committed by other nations (in this case, Germany)?!!!!

That's outrageous. Certainly we could fund museums of crimes that we Americans have ourselves committed, such as the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans?!!

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

6 Michael Blaine January 23, 2008 at 6:03 pm

Well, I'm told now that the Holocaust Museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution, and that it teaches not only about how Americans failed to act in a timely manner to stop German abuses of Jews and also about injustices visited upon various ethnic groups throughout the world.

BUT: it still seems to me there first ought to have been on the National Mall a museum of the US genocide of Native Americans, and of the horror of the enslavement of Africans.

Those crimes against humanity are much more part of America.

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

7 Jim Haygood January 23, 2008 at 6:40 pm

Michael Blaine,

You want it, you got it:

http://www.nmai.si.edu/subpage.cfm?subpage=visitor

(National Museum of the American Indian website)

8 Jim Haygood January 23, 2008 at 6:43 pm

AND … the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

http://nmaahc.si.edu/

9 Michael Blaine January 23, 2008 at 7:08 pm

Thank you, Jim Haygood.

But neither of these museums emphasizes mass criminality the way the Holocaust Museum does.

If we're going to rub the noses of visitors to Washington, DC in atrocities, at least give prime billing to the homegrown ones.

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

10 mane January 23, 2008 at 7:53 pm

The easiest way to spot a dishonest ideologue is that, when confronted with their mistakes (Indian and African museums) they change their argument.

11 Todd January 23, 2008 at 8:01 pm

I feel the same about Yiddish creeping into the English language

12 samuel burke January 23, 2008 at 9:42 pm

in the final analysis: the argument at some point has to convert into whether it is a humanitarian crisis, and whether it will continnue to be as long as the leaders are left to see it through.

In truth: it is already a humanitarian crisis of historical ( 60 yrs long) proportions, as far as duration of its lifespan, It needs to evolve, and evolve rapidly.

The lives lost these past hundred years as a consequence of genius left unbridled, plead for an end to the more historical nakba.

lets have peace, that you comported yourselves as gentlemen and made peace, is the message that history would have wished you envisioned.

13 samuel burke January 23, 2008 at 9:51 pm

>The easiest way to spot a dishonest ideologue is that, when confronted with their mistakes (Indian and African museums) they change their argument.<

this is an example of the, you did it first so we can do it too argument. someone did it to us, or someone did it before us so we can do it also. an eye for an eye, and not forgiveness.

at some point peace will arrive, why not be part of that idea now, close the deal, do it for peace, do it for the love of humanity.

thats my plea.

14 samuel burke January 23, 2008 at 9:57 pm

taking a stand when your country is attacked, is an example of which country you choose to defend, in other words, if you didnt know which country you loved most, now you have evidence in that you choose to defend it above the other.

which it is it?

15 Michael Blaine January 23, 2008 at 10:30 pm

I'm sorry, mane, but I didn't change my argument at all; this is what I asserted the whole time:

"[I]t still seems to me there first ought to have been on the National Mall a museum of the US genocide of Native Americans, and of the horror of the enslavement of Africans."

Haygood misread what I said, and I reiterated my original stance.

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

16 Michael Blaine January 23, 2008 at 11:35 pm

Phil:

Are you going to comment on the Center for Public Integrity's tally of the Bush administration lies designed to perpetrate the Iraq fraud?:

"President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14)."

I hope so!

Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com

17 Juke Moran January 24, 2008 at 3:25 am

Phil-
When you cut and paste formatted text the html brings the original spacings with it, unless you remove them. You can do that on windows machines by pasting first into an app like notetab
http://www.notetab.com/download.php
then hitting the modify – remove html buttons.
Then the pasted text won't be so hard to read.
cheers

18 Charles Keating January 27, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Nobody running for president of the USA even touches the lies detailed by the Center For Public Integrity except Ron Paul. Think about what this means, please.

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