Al-Qaida/Talk

Of the various spellings given, which is the preferred transliteration of the Arabic? What is the most accurate pronunciation? (I've heard people pronounce it "al-kay-da", "al-kwai-da" and "al-ka-ee-da".) -- SJK

well, NOT al-kwai-da. I've heard both of the other two from people who ought to have checked. Most of the correspondents reporting from Afghanistan (and notice how lots of the Arabic speakers seem to say "af-wan-iss-tan"?) seem to be saying "al-kay-da" or "al-kai-da". Oh, and, as someone who regularly teaches history of Islamic art and architecture, there is no single 'preferred' transliteration. There are several transliteratin schemes operating inside the art and architecture journal style sheets alone! The Library of Congress system seems to be overtaking the English-language scholarship for Arabic, but I read a despairing note just last week about the lack of any standardization for Turkish. One thing to remember is that despite the single name, Arabic has many dialects; there are different regional variations on proper names, too; all of that comes through in transliteration. *sigh* --MichaelTinkler.