Gaddafi, or Qaddafi, or Kadhafi, or Khadafy ...?

There is not a huge variety in the opinions expressed about the Libyan leader in the media at the moment, but the same cannot be said about the way his name is spelt. The Times, Guardian and Telegraph style guides recommend Gaddafi (the spelling, that is!). So does the single-volume Oxford Dictionary of English (ODE), but it also has Qaddafi, described as a variant spelling, as an entry. The Oxford Dictionary for Writers & Editors, however, has Qaddafi as the first choice, and Gaddafi as a variant. Looking at the Oxford Reference Online site (which is subscription only) I see that other OUP reference books have a mixture of spellings, and some of them (eg World Encyclopedia) spell his name al-Qaddafi, al-Gaddafi or al Gaddafi. The Canadian CBC has Gadhafi, the New York Daily News has Khadafy, and Metro has Gadaffi.

 

It is the original Arabic spelling that causes problems for those of us who use the Latin alphabet. The first letter of Gaddafi's name is Qaf in Arabic, which is, phonetically speaking, a voiceless, uvular plosive. It's like a K, but instead of the tongue making contact with the soft palate it is further back and touches the uvula. This explains why several Arabic words are spelt different ways - either Q or K - in English, eg Koran/Q'uran, burka/burqa. There are different dialects of Arabic, and in the Libyan dialect this letter often sounds like a G, hence the English spelling. The next letter is ḏāl or dhal, which is a voiced dental fricative, like the 'th' sound in the word 'these'. In Libya, this letter is often pronounced more like a D or Z.

 

According to the Associated Press Gaddafi pronounces his name Gath-thafi. As for the way he spells his name, back in the 1980s when he would print his name in English at the end of letters to the West he wrote El-Gadhafi. The Associated Press still uses the spelling Gadhafi, but without the El.

 

My favourite dictionary on this topic is the Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes, whose first word after the headword Gaddafi is 'daffy'. The second word is 'taffy'.

 

This Associated Press article, from which I gleaned much of the information for this post, is very interesting and informative about why it is so difficult to agree on a spelling.

Comments

[Jemmy Hope]

The blogger Angry Arab (www.angryarab.blogspot.com), who usually romanises Arabic names in what I would call a "sholarly" way, spells the name Qadhdhafi. The name (and the tribe) is said to be of Berber origin, the original name of Gadhafi's* tribe being written "Kathathfa" in the roman alphabet.

*My preferred version.

[Jemmy Hope]

"Sholarly" should be scholarly (not my preferred version).

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks Jemmy for yet another version!

[Mugsy33]

I think it was Kadhafi back when we bombed him.

[Mike]

thanks for this post

CNN uses Ghadafi
FNC uses Qaddafi
MSNBC uses Khaddafy

[Mike]

one more - The U.S. Government uses 'Qadhafi' on their State Dept site

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks for yet more versions, Mike. It's difficult to guess where these organisations got these versions from! Perhaps some are typos.

[Jessica Caley]

Daddy Daddy Qe La Qu Ela DDD SOS

[Jessica Caley]

University of Sydney
Linguistics.
Jessica Caley

[Jessica Caley]

...---...---
..-.-..-..--...-..-.-..-.-.zx

[Stuee]

Forgive me, but if the man himself spells it Gadhafi, why is there any debate how we should spell it?

I've always wanted to hear Kim Basinger say her name, and David Bowie his, to save us all the pub and school yard arguments.

Same principal! :-)

[Nicolai Angel]

i think that's one of the reasons US is trying to hunt him down.. to ask him, " how the hell do you pronounce and spell your name?!! "

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks to all for your comments.