WORLD CUP 2022
Sarah Lyall’s final title is pronounced LYE-yull.
Nov. 21, 2022
Sooner or later the second will arrive for everybody, or at the very least everybody who doesn’t communicate Arabic however hopes to debate this yr’s World Cup with out sounding like a complete fool.
What occurs when conversational circumstance forces us to utter the phrase “Qatar” in public?
Is it Kuh-TAR, like guitar? Or Kuh-TAH, just like the British pronunciation of catarrh, a phlegmy sore throat? What concerning the enterprise executives who bang on about how you might be one hundred pc fallacious and needs to be saying KUH-ter, like cutter (or gutter), or one thing that extra approximates KAT-ar?
Why does everybody on TV appear to have a distinct reply? Can we belief random tutorial YouTube movies? Is there a strategy to say it with out including “or however you pronounce it”? Why hasn’t FIFA issued a proper directive? It has been 12 years, in any case, since soccer’s governing physique began all this by awarding the game’s greatest championship to a tiny Gulf nation.
Sepp Blatter, the previous FIFA president, asserting in 2010 that “Ka-TAR” would host the 2022 World Cup.
Karim Jaafar/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But whereas a four-page phonetic information created for journalists touring to Qatar does supply a level of linguistic reduction — providing step-by-step pronunciations of useful phrases like “Help!” and “I was robbed” — it’s silent on the title of the place the place you may have to say them.
Let us stipulate right here that the issue isn’t willful ignorance or cultural vanity, however that the Arabic pronunciation of “Qatar” — قطر in Arabic script — may be very completely different from the English one:
Taoufik Ben-Amor, senior lecturer in Arabic research at Columbia University
Qatar
If you’re an English speaker, you’re most likely saying it incorrectly, however solely within the sense that your pronunciation of “Paris” or “Chile” could be thought-about fallacious from the perspective of a Parisian or a Chilean.
Which implies that the true query is: What kind of fallacious is correct?
“There’s no real guidance,” mentioned Neil Buethe, the chief communications officer for the United States Soccer Federation, whose crew has slowly trickled in to the nation with the title the gamers want they may pronounce. “It’s definitely been a debate.”
Yes, it has. Online, a Qatari often known as Mr. Q has posted a collection of movies for guests, together with one which begins, “I’ve gone ahead and noticed that a lot of foreigners are teaching foreigners how to pronounce Qatar.” He then reveals just a few clips of individuals saying “Qatar” in numerous painful methods on American TV and provides: “I respect you, you respect me, we’re all respecting each other right now — but no.”
Hassan Al Thawadi leads Qatar’s organizing committee.
Ramon Van Flymen/EPA, through Shutterstock
Hassan Al Thawadi, the top of the Supreme Committee directing the World Cup preparations, mentioned in an interview that pronunciations of “Qatar” range even contained in the host nation.
Hassan Al Thawadi, secretary normal of Qatar’s World Cup group
Qatar
This has not helped alleviate the final confusion amongst guests.
“People were saying ‘KUH-ter’ when we got there for the first time last December,” Buethe mentioned of his journeys to the nation upfront of the World Cup. “But we had many conversations with individuals and with people in the federation, and they told us it wasn’t correct: Don’t say, ‘KUH-ter.’”
Jenny Taft, a sideline reporter for Fox Sports, which can broadcast the World Cup within the United States, mentioned the community had made a command determination.
Jenny Taft is reporting for Fox Sports from Qatar.
Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press
“I don’t know who made the call, but we’re going with Ka-TAR,” she mentioned in an interview. “I’m not sure why, but that was the decision made. And it is unique, right? Like, I probably was saying KUH-ter leading up to this. But Ka-TAR is, I guess, probably the more recognizable way the country is pronounced.”
Jenny Taft, Fox Sports sideline reporter
Qatar
Walker Zimmerman, a defender for the U.S. crew, mentioned that was what he deliberate to do, too. “I say Ka-TAR,” Zimmerman mentioned in an interview within the fall. “I know it’s probably not the correct way — KUH-ter is for those who probably know what they’re talking about a little bit more — but I’m going with Ka-TAR.”
Walker Zimmerman of the United States nationwide crew is aware of he doesn’t say Qatar accurately.
Christof Koepsel/Getty Images
The German tv community ZDF has taken a distinct strategy: Its workers have been knowledgeable through e-mail that they have been to go together with KAT-ar. Martin Tyler, the legendary Sky Sports broadcaster who’s working his twelfth World Cup this yr, mentioned he would do the identical.
Martin Tyler, announcer for Sky Sports and SBS Australia
Qatar
None of those idiosyncratic choices resolves the principle questions, nonetheless: What is the precise pronunciation of the phrase? And what’s our drawback?
This check in Doha supplies no steering on pronunciation.
Abir Sultan/EPA, through Shutterstock
To start with, mentioned Sarab Al Ani, who teaches Arabic at Yale University, the primary consonant within the phrase Qatar doesn’t actually translate right into a Ok or a Q sound. It’s truly a glottal sound, which means it emanates from the glottis, at the back of the throat — a muscle English audio system don’t get to train a lot.
“What’s happening is that the very back of your tongue is lightly and quickly touching the roof of your mouth, creating the initial sound,” Al Ani mentioned.
She urged flattening your tongue and tilting your head barely ahead, to shorten the gap between tongue and throat. “It makes the distance as close as possible,” she defined. “You have to push your tongue back a little bit to create the contact with the roof of your mouth — just a gentle touch, one second — and then make the sound.”
The phrase Qatar has its emphasis on the primary syllable, she mentioned. Following that, the T is fast and explosive — “a dark T,” she referred to as it, barely hole. To make the right sound, it helps to un-flatten your tongue by curving it down barely. The A is pronounced quickly, and the R, Al Ani mentioned, is “closer in pronunciation to a Spanish R.”
Sarab Al Ani, senior lector in Arabic at Yale University
Qatar
She proceeded to reveal a few occasions, after which mentioned, encouragingly, that English audio system, even World Cup reporters, may want a variety of apply earlier than getting it proper.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, kind of, what are we meant to do with our newly engaged glottis, and our newfound information?
The creator Mary Norris, an knowledgeable in correct utilization who’s a former copy editor at The New Yorker, mentioned that overseas place names will be tiny little pronunciation minefields. Use the American pronunciation and also you may appear intentionally ignorant; use the native one and also you danger sounding aggressively pretentious.
She talked about the Kabul conundrum — Ka-BOOL? Or COB-ble? — and admitted that she has no impartial details about the pronunciation of “Qatar.” “I’m sure that in American English we’re not expected to come up with an Arabic pronunciation,” Norris mentioned.
She did say she had as soon as heard her physician discuss with a rustic he referred to as “cotter” on the telephone. “I think he was saying ‘cutter,’” she mentioned, “but in a Brooklyn accent.”
If all of that is simply including to your anxious confusion, please take coronary heart from the soothing message imparted by an official on the Consulate General of the State of Qatar in New York. The official, who requested that her title not be used as a result of she will not be supposed to talk to the information media, mentioned that day by day she has to take heed to English audio system mangling the nation’s title in quite a lot of baroquely inaccurate methods.
But should you’re going with Ka-TAR, you’re positive, she mentioned. (“Cutter” is much less positive.) “It’s not your fault,” she went on. “Some letters in Arabic you don’t have in English, so you cannot pronounce it the same way we do. We know you’re doing the best you can.”