"ABDULS" AND "SHEIKS"

Evening Star, Issue 19020, 15 August 1925, Page 15

"ABDULS" AND "SHEIKS"

CORRECT SPELLING OF ARABIC NAMES

Considerable discussion is going on in tho English Press of Bagdad on the subjrct of tho correct spelling in English c\ Arabic words. “ Baghdad ” is spelt in the English home Press in two different ways, and “ Basrah ” can bo seen on the xiotenaper of various British firms in no less than five forms! We see “Muhammad” frequently turned into “ Mahomet ” or " Mohcmet ” —spellings which give no indication whatever of tho sound of the word - —and “ Abdul Kerim ” lias lately, since tho rise of the Riff leader, been docked by the Western Press. Incident ally the name “Abdul” has always been a stumbling block to English writers, declares a correspondent of the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ It means “slave of the,” and must therefore bo coupled m.ih a following name, which is almost always one of the ninety-nine Arabic descriptive terms applicable to Rod, thus “Abdu’ Allah” (Abdullah). “Slavo of God”; “Abdul Kerim,” “Slave of the Merciful One “ Abdul Hamid,” “Slave of the Kindly One”; and so on. To write “Abdul” alone as a name will, in tho ewes of tbo-e acquainted with the Moslem East, ruin tho credentials of a writer trying to convey “Eastern atmosphere.” The standard .spoiling of Arabic in English lately suggested by a wellknown technical body in London included the entire elimination of the English “ e ’’ and its substitution by “a,” especially in diphthongs. This system .avoids, among other things, the possibility of mispronunciation of many very common Arabic words like “ Snyyid'” or “ Soyyid,” “ Master,” and “Sheikh” or “Shaikh,” “old man.” Tho word “Sheikh ” is certainly rather badly treated in England, Not only is it docked of its final “ h,” but it is made, both by kinenia patrons and on the lips of English ballad singers, to rhymo with “ shriek,” whereas it actually rhymes with “ shako.” Tin’s is one case, say the advocates of the “a” theory, in which the British public would have been saved from error, JPhat argument, however, is uuconvinrng. The danger would remain of Oockneyfying the word into “ shyko.”