# English exonyms for Arabic geographical names



## Anatoli

Long time no see 

May I kindly request to check the romanisation of the countries and cities, please (the list include not only pure Arabic countries but some where it is used or spoken):

* Countries:
*_English_

Algeria        Bahrain        Chad        Comoros        Djibouti        Egypt        Eritrea        Iraq        Israel        Jordan        Kuwait        Lebanon        Libya        Mauritania        Morocco        Oman        Palestine        Qatar        Saudi   Arabia        Somalia        Sudan        Syria        Tunisia        United   Arab Emirates        Western   Sahara        Yemen    
_
Romanised_
      al-Jazā'ir        al-Baḥrayn        Tšād        Juzur   al-Qamar        Jībūtī        Miṣr        Iritriyā        al-`Irāq        Isrā'īl        al-'Urdunn        al-Kuwayt        Lubnān        Lībiyā        Mūrītāniyā        Al-Maġrib        `Umān        Filasṭīn        Qaṭar        al-`Arabiyya as-Sa`ūdiyya        aṣ-Ṣūmāl        As-Sūdān        Sūriya        Tūnis        al-Imārāt al-`Arabiyyah   al-Muttaḥidah        as-Ṣaḥrā' al-Ġarbīyyah        al-Yaman    
_
Arabic_

الجزائر        البحرين        تشاد        جزر   القمر        جيبوتي        مصر        إرتريا        العراق        اسرائيل        الأردن        الكويت        لبنان        ليبيا        موريتانيا        المغرب        عمان        فلسطين        قطر        العربية السعودية        الصومال        السودان        سورية        تونس        الإمارات العربيّة المتّحدة        الصحراء الغربية        اليمن


* Capitals (centres):*
_
English_

Algiers        Manama        N'Djamena        Moroni        Djibouti        Cairo        Asmara        Baghdad        Jerusalem        Amman        Kuwait        Beirut        Tripoli        Nouakchott        Rabat        Muscat        Ramallah        Doha        Riyadh        Mogadishu        Khartoum        Damascus        Tunis        Abu-Dhabi        El   Aaiún        San‘a’    
_
Romanised_

al-Jazā'ir        al-Manāma        Nijāmīnā        Mūrūnī        Jībūtī        Al-Qāhira        Asmarā        Baġdād        Ūršālīm-al-Quds        `Ammān        al-Kuwait        Bayrūt        Ṭarābulus        Nawākšūṭ        ar-Rabāṭ        Masqaṭ        Rāmu   'llah        ad-Dawha        ar-Riyāḍ        Maqadīšū        al-Kharṭūm        Dimašq   / aš-Šām        Tūnis        Abū-Ẓabī        al-`Ayūn        Ṣan`ā’    

_Arabic_

الجزائر       المنامة       نجامينا       موروني       جيبوتي       القاهرة       أسمرا       بغداد       أورشليم القدس       عمان       الكويت       بيروت       طرابلس       نواكشوط       رباط       مسقط       رام الله       الدوحة       الرياض       مقديشو‎       الخرطوم       الشام / دمشق       تونس       أبوظبي       العيون   ‫ﺻﻨﻌﺎﺀ

Please check for typos
I hope you can see all the romanisation symbols

The order of cities has changed and I can't fix it


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## Anatoli

Please let me know if you find it hard to read, I will try to break it up. As for symbols, I am not sure why some computers don't display all fonts correctly, especially letters with a macron (straight line on top) or a dot underneath. I will use a different transliteration method, if you can't read a specific word.


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## kifaru

Yes it's hard to read. Please break it up. Thanks


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## Josh_

As there are many transliteration systems, I'm not exactly sure what you want us to check.  It's not my preferred transliteration, but it is understandable and appears consistent.  

The only error I see is al-'Urdunn, which should have only one 'n' (al-'Urdun), because the nuun is not doubled.


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## Anatoli

Can I suggest to check my page instead? It's much better formatted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_exonyms_of_Arabic_speaking_places

Doesn't  al-'Urdunn has a shadda at the end: الأردنّ?

Please let me know, which symbols (or which words) you can't see, I might need to provide a help page or an alternative transliteration with numbers, not diacritics.

What's the correct pronunciation of Nouakchott in Arabic and is there a version with alif-hamza at the beginnning? What about Ramallah?


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## Josh_

Interesting.  I just checked the Hans Wehr and I guess it is spelled الأردنّ.  I've only ever heard it pronounced al-'*u*rdun, with the stress on the first syllable, and so I assumed the nuun was not doubled.  In Arabic stress falls on the last syllable if there is a doubled letter.  

I'm not sure about the pronunciation of نواكشوط but based on the French spelling it looks like it might be Nūwākšūṭ.

I'm not sure about رام الله either.  I have only ever heard it pronounced ram*a*llah with the stress on the second 'a'.  

Hopefully those more qualified will reply.


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## clevermizo

Josh_ said:


> Interesting.  I just checked the Hans Wehr and I guess it is spelled الأردنّ.



_ٌ_Really? I don't think that's right... Here's the entry in معجم الغني

* الأُرْدُنُ* - : مِنَ البُلْدَانِ العَرَبِيَّةِ (الْمَمْلَكَةُ الأرْدُنِيَّةُ الهاشِمِيَّةُ) عاصِمَتُهَا عَمَّان.


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## Anatoli

So we have a controversy here. I tend to agree with Hans Wehr but is it possible there are more versions of pronunciation?

Note that I prefer the MSA pronunciation (pausal form) for the purpose of this article, so I am using Miṣr (Mi9r), not Ma9r.



> I'm not sure about the pronunciation of نواكشوط but based on the French spelling it looks like it might be Nūwākšūṭ.


Well, it's not exactly French pronunciation, I was actually surprised it was pronounced that way. In French, it's pronounced Nwakshot, if this transcription makes sense.


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## WadiH

Anatoli said:


> So we have a controversy here. I tend to agree with Hans Wehr but is it possible there are more versions of pronunciation?


 
It's very common to hear it pronounced أردنّ in formal settings, such as newscasts, but never in ordinary speech.


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## Ander

Anatoli said:


> In French, it's pronounced Nwakshot, if this transcription makes sense.


 
I agree, that's exactly the French pronunciation and it is the way I would have transcribed it.


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## lukebeadgcf

Josh_ said:


> Interesting.  I just checked the Hans Wehr and I guess it is spelled الأردنّ.  I've only ever heard it pronounced al-'*u*rdun, with the stress on the first syllable, and so I assumed the nuun was not doubled.  In Arabic stress falls on the last syllable if there is a doubled letter.
> 
> I'm not sure about the pronunciation of نواكشوط but based on the French spelling it looks like it might be Nūwākšūṭ.
> 
> I'm not sure about رام الله either.  I have only ever heard it pronounced ram*a*llah with the stress on the second 'a'.
> 
> Hopefully those more qualified will reply.



Hmm. About رام الله, wouldn't the stress fall on the dagger alif in الله if it were to follow normal accentuation rules. (This is just theory, I don't remember ever hearing it pronounced.)


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## Josh_

Hmm. True, as stress also normally falls on the last syllable when a word ends in a long vowel. So under strict rules (of fusHa) I suppose it would be pronounced raamall*aa*h. I've never thought about this before, but it seems that often, or at least sometimes, the final long vowel in الله is shortened, especially when it occurs in constructions, and perhaps also moreso in colloquial speech. And when this happens the stress shifts to the previous syllable, so it becomes ram*a*llah.


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## the-moon-light

ar-Rabāṭ : ar-Ribat

 Rāmu 'llah: ram-maAllah

al-Kharṭūm: al-Khurtoum.


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## elroy

رام الله is always pronounced "Raam*al*la" in MSA (at least in my experience).  In Palestinian Arabic, it's "Ram*al*la" (so the only difference is that the first vowel is shortened).

"Raamal*laah*" sounds very weird.


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## Abu Rashid

> Ūršālīm-al-Quds



Is this hyphenated dual term used? I've only ever heard/read al-Quds. And wouldn't it be "s" not "sh"?


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## elroy

Abu Rashid said:


> Is this hyphenated dual term used? I've only ever heard/read al-Quds. And wouldn't it be "s" not "sh"?


 It is used in Israel, and it's pronounced "Uur(u)shaliim al-Quds."  It's "sh" because it's based on the Hebrew name of the city, which is "Yerushalayim."


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## Josh_

elroy said:


> رام الله is always pronounced "Raam*al*la" in MSA (at least in my experience). In Palestinian Arabic, it's "Ram*al*la" (so the only difference is that the first vowel is shortened).
> 
> "Raamal*laah*" sounds very weird.


Exactly, that is my experience as well. "Raamal*laah*" does sound weird. 

I imagine the last syllable of الله is often shortened, in this word and in all situations when it is shortened, due to the fact that the last letters are alif and haa ه which is a light letter, so it often gets curtailed in normal speech. The ه is often not pronounced in words that end with it. I imagine there is a linguistic term for this phenomenon, but I do not know it at present.


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## Abu Rashid

> It is used in Israel



Guess that's why I've never of it.



> and it's pronounced "Uur(u)shaliim al-Quds."  It's  "sh" because it's based on the Hebrew name of the city, with it  "Yerushalayim."



Then why no 'yaa' on the front? Also even when words are borrowings from Hebrew they still normally use 's' in place of 'sh' or the reverse.


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## elroy

Abu Rashid said:


> Then why no 'yaa' on the front?


 I don't know.   Why does English use a J and not a Y? 





> Also even when words are borrowings from Hebrew they still normally use 's' in place of 'sh' or the reverse.


 Is that right?  Do you have any examples?

By the way, أورشليم القدس is the official name of the city in Israel.  That's what you see on road signs, official documents, etc.  In everyday speech, however, Arabs say القدس only.


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## Abu Rashid

> I don't know.   Why does English use a J  and not a Y?


Because it borrowed it from a language which didn't distinguish between the two.



> Is that right?  Do you have any examples?


Shlomoh = Suleyman
Yishm3el = Ism3eel
Moshe = Musa



> By the way, أورشليم القدس is the official name of the city in Israel.



Interesting. Is it Yeushalim HaQodesh in Hebrew as well? Or is it only in the Arabic translation?



> In everyday speech, however, Arabs say القدس only.



That's what I thought, I've never heard a Palestinian say the combination name.


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## Sidjanga

Abu Rashid said:


> Shlomoh = Suleyman
> Yishm3el = Ism3eel
> Moshe = Musa


Note there's no ي at the beginning of Ism3eel either - even though it was (probably) borrowed from *Y*ishm3el.


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## Abu Rashid

> Note there's no ي at the beginning of Ism3eel either - even though it  was (probably) borrowed from *Y*ishm3el.



Yes I know 

My point was about the s-sh issue. The y-kasra/hamza issue is a little more obvious, since it probably arises from the fact ancient Hebrew used consonants to represent vowels in some cases.


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## elroy

Abu Rashid said:


> Because it borrowed it from a language which didn't distinguish between the two.


 My question was rhetorical.   My point was that when languages borrow words from other languages, all kinds of things happen.  There are no fixed patterns. 





> Shlomoh = Suleyman
> Yishm3el = Ism3eel
> Moshe = Musa


 Thanks for the examples.  That doesn't mean, however, that it's weird for Arabic to borrow a Hebrew word with a "sh" and keep that sound.





> Interesting. Is it Yeushalim HaQodesh in Hebrew as well? Or is it only in the Arabic translation?


 No, in Hebrew it's just "Yerushalayim."


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