Talk:يوجوسلافيا

Hi Anatoli. This is probably a stupid question... why are and  both transliterated with an o, despite the former having a wāw after ج? Should it be ō in the first one instead, just for orthography's sake (actual pronunciation is probably the same)? There are some other entries with an ō, e.g., and , but there are also entries with an o. Wyang (talk) 09:45, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi Frank. It's a very legitimate question. Classical Arabic and MSA don't have a few sounds like ō/o, ē/e, p, g, č, v, ž, etc. which are occasionally used in Arabic transliterations, especially manual ones. Letter "ج" is often used for "g" but this is often considered "Egyptian" (and Sudanese), although it's used in other regions as well and internationally. To render these sounds Arabs use letters, which are available and they recognise them and often pronounce them as in the source language or imitating the original pronunciation, sometimes very close, sometimes not. Long vowels are often used for short vowels, و for ō/o, ū/u, ي for ē/e, ī/i. It's especially true with foreign surnames, new place names and new international phenomena but many words have been Arabised and somewhat or completely adjusted to the phonetic system. There can be more than pronunciation of loanwords, depending on the region and who you ask and I have seen controversial discussions regarding this. Currently I am trying to use Hans Wehr as a source but alternative pronunciations can be added if they are confirmed. E.g. is "kōriyā" according to HW but Mahmdumasri said he pronounces it as "kūryā", as it's spelled.  has various pronunciations. Some educated native speakers insisted it must be "moskō" but I have seen "mūskū" in other sources. There aren't many ultimate sources on how to pronounce loanwords correctly but one can hear how TV announcers pronounce them on Al Jazeera in MSA. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:06, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * As for short vs long, as I said, long vowels are often used for short vowels in loanwords and we agreed a long time ago that when they are pronounced short, we transliterate as short vowels in loanwords. There are some cases where shortening is not marked, e.g. shortening of the final alif as in or some country names. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:12, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Anatoli, for the detailed replies! It makes good sense. I'm wondering why it is spelt not, if it is to be pronounced with a short vowel. Perhaps there isn't much rigour in choosing the transcription of foreign terms in Arabic, but then there is , which is an interesting example perhaps making use of differently spelt o to indicate length. I also wonder if the romanisation for Arabic should be more transliterative and romanise as it is written in the vocalised form, and leave the o/u, e/i, g, v and other extra-orthographic features to be dealt with in the pronunciation section. Wyang (talk) 10:27, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * : As I said, long Arabic vowels are used to transliterate foreign short vowels (and long vowels). Unlike native Arabic words, they don't follow any pattern, so some extra information information is needed. ا typically stands for any variant of "a", و for any variant of "o" or "u" and ي is used for "e" and "i". Without those vowels (long as short), native speakers in most cases wouldn't have a clue what those words mean and how to read them. يوجسلافيا‏ doesn't have enough information as a loanword but يوجوسلافيا is easier to recognise as "Yugoslavia". --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 12:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * ... but seems to be more commonly used (&lrm;767,000 results on Google) than  (&lrm;572,000 results), the spelling with و? Sorry for the pestering... Are  and  to be pronounced exactly the same by an Arabic speaker despite the spelling difference? I wonder if the different spellings are truly a stylistic, preference-based and perhaps regional distinction with no phonological consequence, or if the different spellings do somewhat represent a length preference (in which case it may be better to transcribe the و spelling with a long vowel).  says "When in need the letters ي or و are always used to render the long vowels /eː/ and /oː/." but I'm not sure how frequently these cases (using ي or و to render long vowels) would be. Wyang (talk) 13:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)


 * (BEFORE E/C) It's not consistent, LOL. got away without any long vowels. I don't remember where يوغسلافيا is coming from but it is attestable. You will find that some Arabs and Arabists think that vowels are unimportant or much less important in Arabic. The same word may be pronounced with various short vowels and no-one seems to be bothered by it. It's also much harder to find, which vowels are correct, if a term is not in Qur'an.
 * (AFTER E/C) Most likely they are pronounced identically and "غ" may be read as a hard "g", since everyone knows the English word "Yugoslavia". ي or و are used for /eː/ and /oː/ but also often for short vowels in loanwords. User:Stephen G. Brown even prefers to always transliterate the long vowels as short in loanwords but there is no consistency. Loanwords is a mess. The only consistency is that the trend is to pronounce loanwords as close as possible to the original (if the origin is European - English, French, Spanish, Russian, etc.), despite the spelling. So  is just "frank", not "frānk" (Frank, franc). Pls check HW. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:17, 28 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, I differentiate. Arabic script is said to be an abjad, but that is only when writing native Arabic. When it is used for foreign words, the script is treated as a true alphabet, and alif/waw/yaa (which normally indicate prolongation of a vowel) are converted into true vowels, and indication of length is lost. So when used for loanwords, there is no vowel length. At the same time, Arabs are very much accustomed to their abjad and the syllable structure inherent to Arabic, so even when writing alphabetically, they still often succumb to dropping some vowels that seem weak and neutral. For example, the vowel in our -tion suffix, and the same vowel in the -ton suffix (Houston, Manhattan, Austin, Washington, and so on), is frequently dropped even when writing alphabetically. As for يوجسلافيا, Arabic syllable structure forbids a consonant cluster of three or more consecutive spoken consonants, so when they write جسلا (gsl), it is required that the reader/speaker insert a short vowel to break the three consonants into two syllables. Therefore, جسلا and جوسلا are the same to an Arab reader. It's a bit like Japanese writers who can write a Japanese word in kanji only, or with kanji and hiragana together, using a variable number of hiragana in the word depending on the age of the expected readers. —Stephen (Talk) 07:36, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * is transliterated as "dūš" in H Wehr but I wonder if everybody pronounces it long. also exists. The problem is there is no definite answer about the pronunciation of loanwords, even if you ask native speakers. It will be just their opinion. At Wiktionary we end up making some educated guesses based on patterns, leave the transliteration automated (based on the spelling) or use resources like Hans Wehr but native speakers have also challenged some transliterations of foreign words at HW. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:29, 28 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Anatoli! Wyang (talk) 21:56, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * : is also in HW, transliterated as "yūḡoslāviyā‏". I don't mind making it the main form, if it's more frequent. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:08, 29 August 2017 (UTC)