# Gibran جبران



## Zsanna

Hello everybody,

I would like to know the original pronunciaton of *G*ibran in the poet's name: Khalil Gibran, which I need to be able to provide the right transcription of it in Hungarian.

Is it like the first sound (g) in "*g*inger" or "*g*oal"?

Thank you.


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## Muwahid

From Wikipedia: his name in the Arabic script جبران خليل جبران بن ميکائيل بن سعد; Jibraan Khaliil Jibraan bin Meekaa'eel bin Sa'd


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## Zsanna

Thank you, Muwahid but I'm afraid I cannot tell from your description whether the _pronunciation_ is one or the other... 

Maybe like the first sound in the word "*g*inger" then?


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## Muwahid

Colloquially some Arabs use the G, some use the J, Fus7a uses the J for _jeem_. But since in English Ginger would be pronouncelike _Jin-jer _then yes.

From the Arabic script that's what I can tell you it's the pure "J" sound. But perhaps in Egypt they would say *G*ibraan with G as in *G*et.


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## Zsanna

Oh, that is very interesting. As he is Lebanese, could that influence the pronunciation towards the "*g*et" sound?

My problem is that both transcriptions exist in Hungarian which is surely a mistake. If I wanted to provide the right one, I would have to know how he would have pronunced his own name or how most of "his" people (fellow countrymen) pronunce it.


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## clevermizo

Zsanna said:


> Oh, that is very interesting. As he is Lebanese, could that influence the pronunciation towards the "*g*et" sound?
> 
> My problem is that both transcriptions exist in Hungarian which is surely a mistake. If I wanted to provide the right one, I would have to know how he would have pronunced his own name or how most of "his" people (fellow countrymen) pronunce it.



It's pronounced with the _j_ as in French _Jean_. This is also the _s_ in "leisure", at least in American pronunciation. This is the Lebanese pronunciation of ج. I believe this is Hungarian _zs_. I suppose in Hungarian you'd write the pronunciation as "zsibrán."

I do not know if Egyptians pronounce his name with a hard "g" as in "get" but it is likely as they do so with the names of other non-Egyptians (Nancy Ajram pronounced Agram comes to mind).

People often transliterate names into the Latin alphabet however they want. I believe the official spelling of his name in English is "Kahlil Gibran" which, especially considering "Kahlil" [كهليل؟؟؟؟] doesn't really represent the pronunciation very well.


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## Zsanna

No way of misunderstanding this! Thanks a lot, clevermizo. (Even the Hungarian was perfect!)
I have to admit that I forgot about this "third" possibility.

Yes, I'm not surprised about the different variations but Hungarian should be fairly "easy": you just write foreign names as they are pronunced (well, as much as our alphabet allows their rendering).
Yes, I have read about his American teacher who decided about the spelling of his first name but that does not have to influence me. (I'll suggest Khalil because I think that suggests better the pronunciation.)


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## clevermizo

Zsanna said:


> No way of misunderstanding this! Thanks a lot, clevermizo. (Even the Hungarian was perfect!)



No problem. I know next to nothing about Hungarian, but just quickly looked up Hungarian sounds and spelling before I posted. I also agree and prefer "Khalil" to "Kahlil" and yet his works in English have "Kahlil" which I find a rather strange choice (and maybe a mistake originally?).


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## AndyRoo

I just heard an Arabic presenter (Lebanese, I think) on MBC pronouncing the name Jubraan rather than Jibraan.

The dictionary al-Munjid also says it is pronounced Jubraan.

So I'm not sure where the spelling Gibran came from, although it seems to be the standard spelling of his name.


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## Zsanna

clevermizo said:


> ...I know next to nothing about Hungarian, but just quickly looked up Hungarian sounds and spelling before I posted.


Wow. How did you do that? Could you give the address for it? (I always have problems explaining Hungarian pronunciation - I could make a good use of that here, on the WR, too!) 


clevermizo said:


> I also agree and prefer "Khalil" to "Kahlil" and yet his works in English have "Kahlil" which I find a rather strange choice (and maybe a mistake originally?).


I'm glad to hear that. 
I read that it was his first teacher in America who decided about the spelling of his name this is why it does not follow the usage we see nowadays. In English I suppose you wouldn't change it now but in Hungarian we are not late to introduce the "right way".



AndyRoo said:


> I just heard an Arabic presenter (Lebanese, I think) on MBC pronouncing the name Jubraan rather than Jibraan.
> 
> The dictionary al-Munjid also says it is pronounced Jubraan..


 
Thank you very much, Andy, for this extra piece of information! 
If it is really the standard way of pronunciation then this will be the one I'll have to follow. (Sorry, I'm not familiar with dictionaries concerning Arabic, so I can't really tell how "decisive" al-Munjid is in this matter - I'll try to find out...)



AndyRoo said:


> So I'm not sure where the spelling Gibran came from, although it seems to be the standard spelling of his name.


Yes, this is what I've seen. I suppose the story (quoted above, coming from wikipedia) explains the somewhat unual (even misleading - in my case) spelling in English.


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## clevermizo

Zsanna said:


> Wow. How did you do that? Could you give the address for it? (I always have problems explaining Hungarian pronunciation - I could make a good use of that here, on the WR, too!)



Just the wiki on Hungarian phonology actually.



AndyRoo said:


> I just heard an Arabic presenter (Lebanese, I think) on MBC pronouncing the name Jubraan rather than Jibraan.
> 
> The dictionary al-Munjid also says it is pronounced Jubraan.
> 
> So I'm not sure where the spelling Gibran came from, although it seems to be the standard spelling of his name.



_Jibraan_ would be a more Lebanese colloquial pronunciation (with the vowel _i_ in that position) of the name. If he pronounced his name with this vowel that would explain the choice when Romanized.


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## Zsanna

Thank you so much, clevermizo! 
The link will be very helpful but I'm a bit surprised you managed to "deal with it" so well... (Somehow it does not give the impression as if it were written to foreigners.)

I'm going to wait for your final word on this... 

A presenter may not provide a "final proof" about pronunciation but how about al-Munjid, the dictionary Andy mentioned?


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## AndyRoo

Hi Zsanna,

al-Munjid is very reliable, so I'm pretty sure that in standard Arabic the name is Jubraan.

However, as clevermizo says, in Lebanese colloquial it might be [or is definitely?] pronounced Jibraan.

By the way, another presenter on the same MBC programme also pronounced it Jubraan.


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## clevermizo

AndyRoo said:


> By the way, another presenter on the same MBC channel also pronounced it Jubraan.



Were they speaking MSA?


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## AndyRoo

clevermizo said:


> Were they speaking MSA?


 
Yes - sorry I should have mentioned it but the presenter who I think is Lebanese does speak with a lot of colloquialisms.


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## WadiH

I always thought Lebanese people pronounce it "Jubraan," not "Jibraan," but I'm going on memory here.  The "J" is of course pronounced as Clevermizo described it above.


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## clevermizo

Interesting. Well I hope one of our less frequent Lebanese contributors can comment eventually.


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## cherine

I'm not Lebanese, and I don't know if what I'll say has any value, but here it is any way: In Egypt, the vowel is "o"/"u", not "i". I always thought the "i" is just one more change that English (and other foreign languages) do when pronouncing Arabic names.

We do, of course, pronounce the ج as G not J, but the point here is about the vowel.


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## djara

clevermizo said:


> Interesting. Well I hope one of our less frequent Lebanese contributors can comment eventually.



Well, I'm not Lebanese, but I was convinced by your argument in a previous thread  where you say this:


clevermizo said:


> The basic trend is that where other dialects have stressed /i/ or /u/, Syrian and Lebanese have merged both of them into one vowel which I will call X. This vowel then becomes i-like near most consonants, however near emphatic consonants (ص، ط، ض، ظ ) it is u-like. Examples:
> 
> Fus7a: qiSSa/qiSaS Leb/Syr: 2uSSa/2uSaS
> Fus7a: dukkaan Leb: dikkeen, Syr: dikkaan
> Fus7a: kull Leb/Syr: kill
> Palest(I think? Correct me please): wiSel Leb: wuSel
> Palest: Tile3, Leb: Tule3
> etc.


Doesn't this apply to jubran / jibran?


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## clevermizo

djara said:


> Well, I'm not Lebanese, but I was convinced by your argument in a previous thread  where you say this:
> 
> Doesn't this apply to jubran / jibran?



Right, but this is a personal _name_ not just a regular word. It's not like Lebanese people are incapable of saying _j*u*braan_, so in the end it depends on how the name was pronounced by him and his family and by other Lebanese. It seems from the posts in this thread that it may be in fact _Jubraan_ even in Lebanese pronunciation.


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## Zsanna

So it seems to me, clevermizo. 
All the more if there is even a dictionary to support that line.

Thank you, all, very much for your help.


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## Faylasoof

I’ve heard & read both! Gibran (where G = J) and Jubran!

If it is any help, the entry in Al-Mawrid (from Munir al-Ba3lbaki, a Lebanese), in the section called “Biographical Names”, we have (and I copy):

Under G 
Gibran [joob rän’], Gibran Khalil 
جُبران،  خليل جُبران  ١٩٣١-١٨٨٣
كاتب و شاعر و رسام لبناني 
....  
Under J
Jubran [joob rän’] = Gibran, Gibran Khalil …

Spellings / pronunciations of proper names can sometimes be very confusing, esp. when going from one language to another. 

Yet another Lebanese writer-poet whose name has appeared with variant spellings in English is George (Jurj) Jordac / Jurdaq & Jardaq جرداق ! (You get hits for all three variant surname spellings when googling with the first name, George).


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## goGophers

I can confirm that in Beirut, in conversations with Beirutis, it's pronounced Jibraan, with the short "i" sound.

Heard it just today.


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## Zsanna

So either "i" or "u" could work, really. 
It is strange that to me so different sounds can be interchangeble... 

It may be an idea to see how other languages transcribe the same name. (Although they may simply adopt the English form.)


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## clevermizo

Zsanna said:


> So either "i" or "u" could work, really.
> It is strange that to me so different sounds can be interchangeble...



Interchangeable may not be the right word for this as it has to do with dialectal differences in pronunciation. You might call [g] and [j] (zs) "interchangeable", because Egyptians pronounce the name [*g*ubraan] whereas others have [*j*ubraan], and those sound even more different to me. In fact, I too always thought that was strange with names, but remember that these are native Arabic names, so they will often conform to local norms of pronunciation. In Lebanese and Syrian Arabic the pronunciation of short  or _ depends on the phonetic environment of the word, whereas in other dialects these two sounds are fixed.

If it were a foreign name, I'd expect more uniform pronunciation across regions. For example, I doubt someone from Lebanon would pronounce Gregory as [*j*ri*j*ore].

Anyway, this has been an interesting thread. I'm happy goGophers was able to confirm a Lebanese pronunciation of the name. I'd still be interested in hearing what other speakers from Lebanon think about it, perhaps even someone from the region Bsharre where he originated._


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## Zsanna

Very interesting, indeed.  
I'm glad that all of you came and contributed, I've learnt quite a few things here. (And maybe it hasn't finished!)


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## Qureshpor

Is "Jibraan/Jubraan" a Christian name only or do Muslims also use this name? What is the meaning of this name?


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## إسكندراني

I don't know, Qureshpor, but I've never met a Muslim called جبران.
Since the interchanging of i & u has come up, I thought I'd draw your attention to the Turkish dotless i - which is a possible explanation or at least a related phenomenon.


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## Tracer

1. Professor Mounah Khouri, (RIP) considered the world's foremost literary authority on Khalil Jibran, and himself Lebanese, regularly pronounced  Khalil’s last name as JUBRAN.

2. Writing KAHLIL instead of KHALIL (in English – I don’t know if other European languages follow this practice), is due to the fact that English has no* خ* and since “something had to be done with the H,” it was simply transposed to another location and it became standardized.

This practice can be seen in the contemporary (American) pronunciation of 2 Arabian cities I am familiar with:

*الخــبر* pronounced as KOBAR and *الظــهــران* pronounced as DA-HA-RAN. In the first instance, the “H” is lost completely and the KH becomes K. In the second example, the DH is changed to a D and the H is transposed to another location as in KAHLIL. (Funnily, these pronunciations are nearly universally used by English speakers, even though the official English spelling remains KHOBAR and DHAHRAN.


(Even more peculiar –> local native Arabic speakers, especially its younger members, when speaking in English, routinely adopt the American pronunciation and say KOBAR.)


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## rayloom

QURESHPOR said:


> Is "Jibraan/Jubraan" a Christian name only or do Muslims also use this name? What is the meaning of this name?


 


إسكندراني said:


> I don't know, Qureshpor, but I've never met a Muslim called جبران.



Interestingly you'd find people named جبران in Saudi. Not sure how they vocalize it though!! Perhaps even Jabraan!


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