# برتقال



## LiliaGaripovaRadikovna

Hello! As I know, origin of this word is "Portugal", what means it came to Arabs from Portugal, why there is "kal" [burtukal] instead of "portugal"?


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## djara

Wiktionary says: " Borrowed from Greek πορτοκάλι (portokáli), from Venetian portogallo, ultimately from Portuguese Portugal. "
To this I'll add that it probably came to Arabic through Ottoman Turkish پورتقال - portakal


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## zj73

Because there is no letter for G in Arabic.


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## Ali Smith

That still doesn't explain why ك changed to ق somewhere along the way though.


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## Mahaodeh

The proper spelling is برتغال. 

I’ve only seen this spelling (برتقال) in the last couple of decades, usually used by Saudis. All others (up to my knowledge) use the غ, which is a common replacement for g. In fact, in Standard Arabic Portugal is pronounced with a غين not a g sound. Other examples include غانا وكيلوغرام.

Having said that, the use of ك is fairly common too such as كراج for garage as well as using ج such as انجلترا for England.

I have to admit that while using ق seems to be spreading, I personally find it odd and confusing.


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## WadiH

As far as I know, it’s always been البرتغال in Arabic sources.


Mahaodeh said:


> I’ve only seen this spelling (برتقال) in the last couple of decades, usually used by Saudis.


 I have never seen this before, certainly not by Saudis.  In some Gulf dialects like Kuwait you might hear it with a [q] because that is how they pronounce the ghayn in their dialect (and qaf sometimes becomes [gh]) but it’s rarely written that way.


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## Mahaodeh

I’m sorry, I didn’t explain what I meant clearly. I was saying that the use of قاف for g has become common. I notice it mostly in Saudi advertisements, such as برنقلز وكيلوقز. I don’t know what the official standing on this is in KSA.


Wadi Hanifa said:


> like Kuwait you might hear it with a [q] because that is how they pronounce the ghayn in their dialect (and qaf sometimes becomes [gh])


This did not occur to me. You are right of course. It could be Kuwaiti.


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## WadiH

Mahaodeh said:


> I’m sorry, I didn’t explain what I meant clearly. I was saying that the use of قاف for g has become common. I notice it mostly in Saudi advertisements, such as برنقلز وكيلوقز. I don’t know what the official standing on this is in KSA.



And when Iraqis write كلبي for قلبي that isn't confusing to you?  I think the 'Saudi' way makes the most sense but that's going to be a long discussion for another thread (it's an old practice by the way -- I mentioned before that 19th century Najdi writings referred to the British as الإنقريز).


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## Schem

That's not a unanimous practice here anyway. Many others still prefer to render the sound with ج or more rarely غ.

I find the use of ق convenient and wish it had been widespread earlier so we could avoid pronunciations like "jalaksi" and "jalon". 



Mahaodeh said:


> The proper spelling is برتغال.
> 
> I’ve only seen this spelling (برتقال) in the last couple of decades, usually used by Saudis.



Many Najdis call it بردقان berdegān so I always thought برتقال was proper MSA. I don't think this particular spelling was popularized by Saudis.


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## WadiH

Schem said:


> Many Najdis call it بردقان berdegān so I always thought برتقال was proper MSA. I don't think this particular spelling was popularized by Saudis.



We’re talking about the country not the fruit.  بردقان is still برتقال.


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## Schem

Oh! Then I've never seen the country name spelled that way. I've also only heard it pronounced with غ.


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## Ihsiin

To be fair, I think the OP was asking about the fruit, not the country, specifically why the fruit is called برتقال and not برتغال (since the name of the fruit comes from the name of the country), the answer to which is given in #2, which is that it came to Arabic via Greek.

@Ali Smith in #4 further asked why it (the fruit) is برتقال not برتكال, the answer to which is that /k/ is often imported into Arabic as /q/, as are other sounds which can be represented by emphatics in Arabic.


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## Mahaodeh

Wadi Hanifa said:


> And when Iraqis write كلبي for قلبي that isn't confusing to you?


Yes, it is. Using the غ is the least confusing because the opposite is also done, for example غادة is written Gada or Ghada in English. But using ج may have become acceptable because of Egyptian writing, which is the most widespread. Frankly, using ك seems the most confusing.


Wadi Hanifa said:


> I think the 'Saudi' way makes the most sense


I suppose it makes as much sense as the Egyptian way. It’s probably that I’m just not used to it.


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## Alfaaz

Wadi Hanifa said:
			
		

> ... I mentioned before that 19th century Najdi writings referred to the British as الإنقريز


Is this related to Urdu انگریز - _aNgrez_ (used in the Indian subcontinent for _English_)...?


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## WadiH

Mahaodeh said:


> Yes, it is. Using the غ is the least confusing because the opposite is also done, for example غادة is written Gada or Ghada in English. But using ج may have become acceptable because of Egyptian writing, which is the most widespread. Frankly, using ك seems the most confusing.



The problem with Iraqi writing is that they don't just use it to represent foreign [g]'s but also native Arabic ones and so end up changing actual Arabic words, so قلب becomes كلب and قتل becomes كتل and so on.  We pronounce these words exactly the same way as Iraqis do but it never occurs to us to write them with anything other than a ق.  We also have [q] words imported from literary Arabic, but we don't find a need to distinguish them from [g] words in writing (we assume everyone will read the ق as he pleases).

I think it has to do with different attitudes to writing the dialect in different countries.  On one end of the spectrum, you have an 'etymological' approach where words tend to be written close to their literary forms, and on the other end you have a 'phonetic' approach where words are written to conform more closely to how they are actually pronounced.  The latter approach is great for linguists trying to document a language but it's not very conducive to communication in a large language community with a lot of variation.  Imagine if Brits and Americans tried to change their respective writing systems to reflect their actual vowels and consonants -- American and British texts would start to look quite different.

Iraqis tend to be on the phonetic side of the spectrum (e.g. they make a point of marking [q] words with ق and [g] words with كـ, they write عندنا as عدنه to reflect both the assimilation of the [n] and the shortening of the [a]), while Saudis are on the etymological side (we assume everyone will pronounce the word according with their own accent or dialect but we will all be thinking of the same word).  I don't know what the reason is behind this: it could be that Saudi Arabia is much bigger and more diverse in its dialects (while Iraq seems to have one dominant dialect type and a few small marginal ones), plus the fact that there is a very large community of expat Arabs from other countries, so we are used to writing in a way that can 'scan' onto multiple dialects, or it could be due to political stability and higher literacy in recent decades, leading people to instinctively write in an etymological way.



Mahaodeh said:


> I suppose it makes as much sense as the Egyptian way. It’s probably that I’m just not used to it.



I think it's a bit better than the Egyptian way (_jiim_) (and the others like ك and غ) and I'll explain why:

Foreign languages often have a [dj] sound, so when you render a foreign word with _jiim _you can't know if it's meant to be pronounced with a [dj] or a [g] (Egyptians get around this by using چ to represent foreign [j] and [dj], but that doesn't work elsewhere because other dialects already use ج for that sound).  But foreign languages generally don't have a [Q] sound, so when you see ق in a foreign word everyone knows it's been reserved for the sound [g].  So when you see ق in Arabic word you can pronounce it however you like, but when you see it in a foreign word you pronounce it with [g].

I suppose غ can work the same way, but the problem is that people always end up reading it with a [gh], and it was invented by speakers who don't have a [g] sound in their dialect.  As a kid, I heard a lot of people saying _jraam _and _ghraam _instead of _graam_.  There's nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it's a bit odd for us to do so since [g] is one of the most common phonemes in our dialect.  So the recent spread (or revival) of ق is understandable.

Of course it's a matter of convention and custom in the end.  The ق=[g] is the most widespread in the Arab world geographically (including most Egyptian dialects outside of Cairo/Alexandria), so practically everyone is familiar with it in their own country, but it is not the 'prestige' dialect except in the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq (and even there the situation is complex since [q] is preferred for certain "high" words among the educated classes) and that's the ultimate reason why it is not likely to catch on, but I think it will at least become more familiar with time.



Alfaaz said:


> Is this related to Urdu انگریز - _aNgrez_ (used in the Indian subcontinent for _English_)...?



I don't know.  It could be related since there were close links between the Arabian Peninsula and Indian Muslims in that period, but it could also have happened independently since [l] and [r] are close and often switch places.


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## raamez

From an etymological standpoint ج is the most accurate rendition of the g sound (g as in Gaming for example, which by the way I would write as جيمينغ myself. Yes a hybrid of ج and غ). This is was the case in Classical Arabic at the dawn of Islam which was described by Sibaweh and not only that but also other scholers noted that ج and ق cannot be part of one root which is only explicable when we know that ج was pronounced as g.
Anyway the situation is pretty complex, we write هنغاريا , انغولا, غابون , لوكسمبورغ etc... but pronounce them all with g
But then we have بلغاريا, برتغال , غانا and مدغشقر which are indeed pronounced with gh
The most common transcription for England and English in Syria is oddly enough انكلترا and انكليزي never انغليزي


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## Hemza

Wadi Hanifa said:


> And when Iraqis write كلبي for قلبي that isn't confusing to you?


You want something truly confusing? In Morocco both ق and ج may be pronounced with a hard "g". You may hear جوز and قبل both pronounced with a hard g. In the same vein, some people write جلس as كلس  (that irritates me by the way) but not everyone do that.


Mahaodeh said:


> Yes, it is.


Not in Morocco where the "g" is sometimes written ك or گ. Some people go as far as writing "gâl" as كال or گال and those who pronounce "galbi" write it like the Iraqis although the regular ق is also used (even for a hard g). English language is of course always الانكليزية (with a hard g).

In Mauritania, it's ALWAYS ك or گ whenever there is a hard "g". Given it's a bedouin dialect, there is a lot of ك in a Mauritanian dialect written text .

I've always seen البرتغال (and me as well I thought at first that the thread was about the fruit  ) and it's pronounced with a غ although it wouldn't surprise me if some Moroccans write it in a colloquial way البرتكال.


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## Ihsiin

Wadi Hanifa said:


> The problem with Iraqi writing is that they don't just use it to represent foreign [g]'s but also native Arabic ones and so end up changing actual Arabic words, so قلب becomes كلب and قتل becomes كتل and so on.  We pronounce these words exactly the same way as Iraqis do but it never occurs to us to write them with anything other than a ق.  We also have [q] words imported from literary Arabic, but we don't find a need to distinguish them from [g] words in writing (we assume everyone will read the ق as he pleases).
> 
> I think it has to do with different attitudes to writing the dialect in different countries.  One one end of the spectrum, you have an 'etymological' approach where words tend to be written close to their literary forms, and on the other end you have a 'phonetic' approach where words are written to conform more closely to how they are actually pronounced.  The latter approach is great for linguists trying to document a language but it's not very conducive to communication in a large language community with a lot of variation.  Imagine if Brits and Americans tried to change their respective writing systems to reflect their actual vowels and consonants -- American and British texts would start to look quite different.
> 
> Iraqis tend to be on the phonetic side of the spectrum (e.g. they make a point of marking [q] words with ق and [g] words with كـ, they write عندنا as عدنه to reflect both the assimilation of the [n] and the shortening of the [a]), while Saudis are on the etymological side (we assume everyone will pronounce the word according with their own accent or dialect but we will all be thinking of the same word).  I don't know what the reason is behind this: it could be that Saudi Arabia is much bigger and more diverse in its dialects (while Iraq seems to have one dominant dialect type and a few small marginal ones), plus the fact that there is a very large community of expat Arabs from other countries, so we are used to writing in a way that can 'scan' onto multiple dialects, or it could be due to political stability and higher literacy in recent decades, leading people to instinctively write in an etymological way.


 
To be fair once again, Iraqi كتل is pronounced _kital _not _gital_ (same with وكت). More broadly on this convention in written Iraqi, I think it's probably down to influence from written Persian/Ottoman Turkish, which have گ for /g/ and چ for /tʃ/. These are used in written Iraqi, but since they are not easily accessible on a normal Arabic keyboard, they're often replaced with the standard ك and ج respectively.


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## WadiH

Ihsiin said:


> To be fair once again, Iraqi كتل is pronounced _kital _not _gital_ (same with وكت).



But they both ultimately correspond to etymological ق so it doesn't affect what I'm saying.



Ihsiin said:


> More broadly on this convention in written Iraqi, I think it's probably down to influence from written Persian/Ottoman Turkish, which have گ for /g/ and چ for /tʃ/. These are used in written Iraqi, but since they are not easily accessible on a normal Arabic keyboard, they're often replaced with the standard ك and ج respectively.



Yes, but again they are used not just for foreign words but native Arabic ones, while speakers of other dialects generally don't do this (or at least don't do it as much).  Many Syrians and Palestinians pronounce قلب as _alb _but they usually still write it as قلب (the character ق can have multiple values depending on dialect, but etymologically it is still ق regardless of how it's pronounced).


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## Ihsiin

Wadi Hanifa said:


> But they both ultimately correspond to etymological ق so it doesn't affect what I'm saying.



True, but I think it makes more sense to use the phonetic spelling in the case where the sound has shifted to one which already has an established letter, similarly as Shami speakers for example often use ت and د for etymological ث and ذ. It's not _that_ uncommon for Iraqis to write for example قلب for _galub _(I would do this myself), though I would say it's probably far less common to see وقت for _wakit_ or قدر for _jidir._



> Yes, but again they are used not just for foreign words but native Arabic ones, while speakers of other dialects generally don't do this (or at least don't do it as much).  Many Syrians and Palestinians pronounce قلب as _alb _but they usually still write it as قلب (the character ق can have multiple values depending on dialect, but etymologically it is still ق regardless of how it's pronounced).



True, I was only musing over why the (kind of) phonetic spelling was more prevalent in Iraq. There's also the fact that Iraq has a higher prevalence of /q/ as compared with other ق=/g/ type dialects, including some minimal pairs such as _sūq _and _sūg_.


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