# SP: Allah (transliteration)



## Fernando

In the "Sólo Español" (Only Spanish) forum has raised the question that many Spanish Muslims use the term "Allah" in Spanish instead of the traditional Spanish trasliteration "Alá".

*Does anybody know which is the correct trasliteration to Spanish?*

Sorry if this topic has been commented before. 

I am aware that Muslims use respectful terms (such as PBUH with the Prophet) but I do not know their exact use and I am not a Muslim anyway, so I am using "Allah" with the same respect I would do with "Dios" (God) in Spanish. Forgive any (unintended, anyway) preceived disrespect.


----------



## suma

Perhaps many of the Muslims there are English speakers before they were speakers of Spanish, so their choice of transliteration reflects English spelling patterns.

Since Spain had such a long history of Muslim rule it would be interedting to see how the Spanish people of old would transliterate "Allah" before English become such a global force.


----------



## Nikola

Historically _Alá, however it is increasingly written by Muslims in Spain and Latin America as Allah.We can also see Muhammad instead of Mahoma(PBUH)_
_See this Venezuelan Islamic site http://www.islamvenezuela.8m.com/_


----------



## CarlosPerezMartinez

Alá is the Spanish form for Allah but the later is closer to the real pronunciation of God in Arabic. That is why modern muslims would prefer it to the older one. It happens the same with the name of Muhammad which is Mahoma in Spanish (Mehmet in Turkish).


----------



## Fernando

But the pronunciación of "Allah" in Spanish would be something as "Ayá". I do not doubt an English speaker would read "Allah" as /al-lá/ but that pronuntiation would be more properly conveyed by the traditional "Alá. 

About Mohammed/Muhammed I agree with you. It has been a mistery to me how "Mahoma" has been created.


----------



## Ander

Fernando said:


> About Mohammed/Muhammed I agree with you. It has been a mistery to me how "Mahoma" has been created.



The French say Mahomet and the Italians Maometto. 
We also call Yeshu`a Jesus, Gesù, Jesùs or `Iisaa.

Where do you see a mystery ?


----------



## Tajabone

Linguistically, it is a normal practice to "adapt" names according to what your own language can offer you within the limits of its phonetic range.


----------



## Fernando

Ander said:


> The French say Mahomet and the Italians Maometto.
> We also call Yeshu`a Jesus, Gesù, Jesùs or `Iisaa.
> 
> Where do you see a mystery ?



In the fact that Mohammed and Mahoma have very separated spellings. All the variants of "Jesus" are far closer (except, maybe, Isa).


----------



## Outsider

As others have said, there is not a unique way of transliterating a language. If you search this forum for the words "transliteration" and "transliterate", I think you will find many discussions about this.

Now, obviously, one thing that needs to be taken into consideration is the target language. I understand your concern with the pronunciation of the "ll" in "Allah", Fernando.

In ancient times, it was customary to adapt a word to the phonotactics of the target language _first_, and then transcribe it. Nowadays, transcribing the original sounds as closely as possible is preferred. Of course, the only way to get a perfect transcription is by using a phonetic alphabet, which typically people are not willing to do anyway. Try as they might, normally there are some sounds in the source language which do not exist in the target language (such as the "h" or the double "l" in "Allah" _vis à vis_ Spanish).

As a final complication, Arabic, like other languages, has many dialects, and pronunciation can vary between them (and has also varied historically). The Arabic script normally indicates only consonants, not vowels, so that "Mhmmd" could perfectly be pronounced "Mahommed" by some speakers and "Muhammad" by others. Neither of the transliterations is more valid than the other, really. It's just a question of custom.


----------



## Fernando

Thank you to all posters. Though it is still unclear to me why "Allah" is a more correct trasliteration to Spanish (or to any Romance language?) than "Alá" (except for the "lost" "h", which I understand is an aspirated sound), your comments have been very helpful.


----------



## cherine

Hola Fernando, it's nice to see you in the Arabic forum 


Fernando said:


> In the "Sólo Español" (Only Spanish) forum has raised the question that many Spanish Muslims use the term "Allah" in Spanish instead of the traditional Spanish trasliteration "Alá".
> *Does anybody know which is the correct trasliteration to Spanish?*


I think that only those who know a bit about Spanish phonetics -and preferably Arabic too- can give you the "best" answer. But I'll venture an opinion anyway.
Allah, as pronounced in English is closer to the Arabic word الله than the Spanish Alá. But, knowing that a Spanish speaker would never pronounce Allah as an English speaker would, I think it's better to hear Alá than (aya or ayaj) 


> I am aware that Muslims use respectful terms (such as PBUH with the Prophet) but I do not know their exact use and I am not a Muslim anyway, so I am using "Allah" with the same respect I would do with "Dios" (God) in Spanish. Forgive any (unintended, anyway) preceived disrespect.


No need for apologies, it's a very legitimate question 



Fernando said:


> Thank you to all posters. Though it is still unclear to me why "Allah" is a more correct trasliteration to Spanish (or to any Romance language?) than "Alá" (except for the "lost" "h", which I understand is an aspirated sound), your comments have been very helpful.


I agree with you, Fernando. I think that whoever wants to write Allah in a Spanish text is either not very aware of the Spanish language/phonetics, or only someone -in my humble opinion- with too much religious sensibility.

Recently, there has been claims from some Muslims -and non-Muslims too- to use Arabic words for Islamic contexts even in non-Arabic languages.
So, instead of saying God, Dieu or Dios (like we always did when translating into foreign languages) we should -in these people's opinion- use Allah.
And instead of prayer, we should say Salat, and use zakat instead of charity/alms giving....

Personally, I find this silly. Are we suppose to change other languages to fit our religion? I understand we need to create arabized words when there's no equivalent for the Arabic word, but when there are, like Dios/God then why not use the existing words?! And I also think it helps creating certain associations, that are not necessarily positive.
When you hear Dios/God, each person think of God according to their belief, but when you hear Allah, it's directly related to Islam, and I've seen it used in very negative contexts. 


As for Mahoma, Mohamed, Muhammad... I think we can discuss it in another thread 


P.S. The only word that I heard transliterated into Spanish and caused me some confusion was iman (the person who leads the prayer), because this word in Arabic ima*m*, for the Arabic word "iman" means "fé". If Spanish speaker could change this one, that would be great


----------



## Fernando

cherine said:


> P.S. The only word that I heard transliterated into Spanish and caused me some confusion was iman (the person who leads the prayer), because this word in Arabic ima*m*, for the Arabic word "iman" means "fé". If Spanish speaker could change this one, that would be great



Thank you very much, Cherine. I can not promise you anything, since there is no Spanish word (except some imported from Latin) with final "m" and we tend to convert them in "n" (or, even often, for Latin words, "um" > "o"). 

As you can see, the RAE dictionary (the "official" one) conveys the "n" form, even noticing the origin in Arabic as "imam".



> imán2.
> (Del ár. clás. imām, director [de la plegaria o de la comunidad]).
> 1. m. Encargado de presidir la oración canónica musulmana, poniéndose delante de los fieles para que estos le sigan en sus rezos y movimientos.
> 2. m. Guía, jefe o modelo espiritual o religioso, y a veces también político, en una sociedad musulmana.


----------



## cherine

Thank you Fernando  I was half-serious half joking, I know it's not easy to change an established usage.

And thanks for the information, I didn't know that there are no Spanish words ending with M. This explains it very well  

I think the same logical explanation applies to transliterating Allah in Spanish as Alá: it won't be pronounced right.
If only people would use the brain -and ears- more often!


----------



## elroy

Outsider said:


> The Arabic script normally indicates only consonants, not vowels, so that "Mhmmd" could perfectly be pronounced "Mahommed" by some speakers and "Muhammad" by others. Neither of the transliterations is more valid than the other, really. It's just a question of custom.


 This is not true, Outsider.  Short vowels are not written, but that doesn't mean they're not part of the word, and that certainly doesn't mean that each speaker of Arabic is free to insert whichever vowels strike his fancy.

The standard pronunciation of the name is "Mu7ammad." Now, in this case there happens to be some dialectal variation (for example, in Palestinian Arabic we say "M7ammad"), but that has nothing to do with the absence of short vowels in the written version - and in any case the standard pronunciation is common throughout the Arabic-speaking world.


----------



## Outsider

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that the variations in pronunciation are _caused_ by the fact that short vowels are not written down. What I mean is that a word that "looks" the same when written can have rather different pronunciations in different dialects.

And then there is also the issue (which I recall hearing about here in the forum) that although Arabic has only three short vowel phonemes (a, i, u), these vowels have allophones which can sound closer to a Spanish "e" or "o". Hence Mohammed instead of Muhammad...


----------



## elroy

Outsider said:


> What I mean is that a word that "looks" the same when written can have rather different pronunciations in different dialects.


 Again, I must disagree.  There is no relation between the absence of short vowels in written Arabic and dialectal differences in spoken Arabic.

I could elaborate on this, but I don't want to veer too far off-topic. If you are interested in exploring this issue further, please feel free to open a new thread. 


> And then there is also the issue (which I recall hearing about here in the forum) that although Arabic has only three short vowel phonemes (a, i, u), these vowels have allophones which can sound closer to a Spanish "e" or "o". Hence Mohammed instead of Muhammad...


 Yes, the vowels "e" and "o" exist in the dialects but not in standard Arabic. However, I've never come across "Mo7ammed" as a pronunciation in Arabic. I think this is because "e" - except in the case of anaptyxis - usually (maybe even always) corresponds to "i" and not "a" in standard Arabic.


----------



## Outsider

elroy said:


> There is no relation between the absence of short vowels in written Arabic and dialectal differences in spoken Arabic.


But I never said there was!


----------



## elroy

It seems to me that I've misunderstood you. I've read over your posts again and considered them more carefully, and I think I now get what you were trying to say. Could you please let me know if the penny has indeed dropped?

I think you were saying that because short vowels are not normally written, those who wish to transliterate a given word do not have a visible vowelization to go by, and therefore - in the case of dialectal differences - can choose between multiple options as far as the vowels they use in their transliteration and still have a transliteration that appears to correspond to the written version of the word in Arabic.

I hope I'm at least close.


----------



## Outsider

Yes, Elroy, that was it. 

I guess you're right about _Mohammed_ not being a valid pronunciation in Arabic. It's an old loanword that probably incorporates some sound changes due to the target languages themselves.


----------



## MarcB

cherine said:


> I agree with you, Fernando. I think that whoever wants to write Allah in a Spanish text is either not very aware of the Spanish language/phonetics, or only someone -in my humble opinion- with too much religious sensibility.
> 
> Recently, there has been claims from some Muslims -and non-Muslims too- to use Arabic words for Islamic contexts even in non-Arabic languages.
> So, instead of saying God, Dieu or Dios (like we always did when translating into foreign languages) we should -in these people's opinion- use Allah.
> And instead of prayer, we should say Salat, and use zakat instead of charity/alms giving....
> 
> Allah, it's directly related to Islam, and I've seen it used in very negative contexts.


Actually it is not new most non-Arab Muslims say Allah and use several Arabic words and have done so since the beginning of Islam, this has no negative meaning.Even if some people may interpret it that way. So although one can translate the words they usually do not, it is just a matter of usage and to many people it is very important to their religious belief. I looked at the _Venezuelan Islamic site __http://www.islamvenezuela.8m.com/_ from post 3 if you look you can see some examples.


----------

