Article

2003-05-09 Arabia

Qatarâs Emir Gives Bush Arab View on Iraq

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Posted by Steve White 2003-05-09 02:20 am|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Does Qatar rhyme with butter or guitar. A thousand monkeys for an answer.

Posted by Lucky 2003-05-09 10:28:45|| 2003-05-09 10:28:45|| Front Page Top

#2 Any reasonable and sane person wants a diplomatic solution to all problems. Unfortunately, some of the problems ARE insane or unreasonable people. Thus, sane and PRACTICAL people are usually forced to use force to solve some problems.

Posted by Ptah 2003-05-09 11:35:53|| [www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2003-05-09 11:35:53|| Front Page Top

#3 guitar if you accept their spokesman's pronunciation, gutter if you don't like their politics

Posted by Frank G 2003-05-09 11:52:51|| 2003-05-09 11:52:51|| Front Page Top

#4 A friend of mine who is a computer programmer from Qatar says it's pronounced "Kha-tar", accent on the first syllable. The second 'a' is a long vowel sound.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-05-09 12:23:26|| 2003-05-09 12:23:26|| Front Page Top

#5 Old Patriot--Can you rhyme that with a familiar word? Most of the newscasts I've heard pronounce it as "Kotter", like "Welcome Back, Qatar". Does that match your phonetics?

Posted by Dar 2003-05-09 12:54:37|| 2003-05-09 12:54:37|| Front Page Top

#6 http://www.nationalreview.com/impromptus/impromptus031103.asp

I called up the Qatari embassy in Washington. The receptionist answered, âGood morning, Embassy of Qa-TAHR [not âGutterâ ].â I smiled. I then asked â this was a native â how Qataris (âguttereesâ?) pronounced the name of their country. She said âgutter,â or something close. But one gets the feeling that she wouldnât say âgutterâ when speaking in English. Neither would an American say âUnited Statesâ instead of âEtats-Unisâ when speaking French.

And this brings me to a marvelous note from a reader: âJay, I just watched the 60 Minutes piece on Qatar and was sent racing to my computer to e-mail you. Thatâs because, while Ed Bradley was pronouncing the name of the country as something close to âgutter,â none other than the Emir of Qatar himself â responding to Bradleyâs questions in English â pronounced it âQa-TAHRâ (i.e., the way it used be pronounced in the Anglosphere before it was subjected to sensitivity-police brutality).

âNotwithstanding my profound respect for the linguistic expertise of the talking heads on CBS, CNN, etc., I think we should all feel pretty comfortable following the lead of the good Emir when it comes to pronouncing his countryâs name.â

Posted by Anonymous 2003-05-09 13:36:32|| 2003-05-09 13:36:32|| Front Page Top

#7 This reminds alot of the "EyeRan" (Iran) and "EyeRack" (Iraq) pronunciations.

Iranians call their country "Eerahn (long e, soft a like ahhh) and similarly, it is EeRock, not Eyerack. Qatar is Qa-tahr.

Maybe we should add those two to the proper pronunciation list as well.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-05-09 15:21:30|| 2003-05-09 15:21:30|| Front Page Top

#8 I thought it was prononced "cutter"...hmmm

Posted by Watcher 2003-05-10 03:32:57|| 2003-05-10 03:32:57|| Front Page Top

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