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al-Nakba...
In his excellent text, A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East, Yasir Suleiman discusses they key role played by language and language policy in forming the national and communal identies that are at the heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict. In the way language is used in daily interaction in both the public and personal he sees indications of inequality and prejudice. In one particular observation he notes how street signs in cities like Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem that have large Arab populations, will usually contain Hebrew (on top) followed by Arabic and Enlgish. The triligualism, he sees as an admirable effort on the part of Israel, which has kept Arabic as an official language, but he also notices something else; the signs are often riddled with spelling mistakes and ineloquent Arabic. While some may see this as an innocent mistake, Suleiman sees it as evidence of the greater inequality faced by Arabs in Israel. Though these signs are designed by mid-level bureaucrats in these various municipalities, these bureaucrats are generally Jews, whose knowledge of Arabic comes from time served in the IDF or sometimes from heritage. What Suleiman sees in these signs is evidence of the inaccessability of mid-level white-collar jobs to Arabs in Israel. Here the state has a clear need for native speakers to fulfill a necessary function, yet they rely on non-natives who invariably make mistakes and put out an inferior project. Thus, these signs serve as a constant reminder to Arabs in Israel of their second-class status.
Why am I mentioning all this now? Well, as you may or may not know, we are approaching May 15th, which is the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, the day that commemorates the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of Israel. Naturally the Internet and other media are abuzz with heated discussions on the exact nature of the events surrounding Israel's creation, complete with all the finger-pointing one would expect. However, all this reference has caused me to notice that al-Nakba is often transliterated by people into English as al-Naqba (with a "q" instead of a "k"). A seemingly harmless mistake, since Arabic is hard enough to transliterate anyway, but it got me thinking, the k/q distinction in Arabic is a distinct one, and not one that usually causes problems in transliteration. So why, then, is the transliteration of as Naqba so prevalent? I looked to Google for my answer.
A simple search for the terms Nakba and Naqba turn up 896,000 for the former and 57,100 for the latter. So, Nakba is clearly preferred, as it should be, but Naqba is not insignificant. A look at the search result, however, makes the result immediately clear.
The first page of hits for Nakba vs. Naqba:
Nakba
www.alnakba.org
Wikipedia
ElectronicIntifada.net
Coalition for Justice in Israel/Palestine (Stanford Chapter)
PalestineRemembered.com
Nakba-Archive.org
Hanini.org
news.yahoo.com
Naqba
Wikipedia (re-directs to the article on Nakba Day)
kokhavivpublications.com
jewishvirtuallibrary.com
FrontPage Magazine (a Newo-Con Rag)
naqba.spaces.live.com
tehrantimes.com
Jerusalem Post
SnappedShot.com (which calls Nakba Day "a pseudo-festival")
2 other blogs which claim that Nakba-denial is not the same as Holocaust denial.
The difference in results from the two searches is glaringly obvious. Disregarding the odd Tehran Times hit, the rest of the Naqba results are either Jewish/Israeli sources or those sympathetic to the Israeli cause. Most of the Nakba results, however, are those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and one reputable news-source (Reuters). Thus, we see that Palestinian sympathizers use the correct transliteration (which would be expected), but the question remains as to why these other sources prefer Naqba.
My tentative guess is that the reason many Jewish sources transliterate as comes from the fact that they are basing it off of Hebrew. Now, my knowledge of Arab-Hebrew standard transliteration techniques is not exactly solid, but I do know that the standard Hebrew transliteration of the Arabic يوم النكبة (yoom an-nakba) is יום הנכבה (yom ha-nakba). Hebrew, being Semitic like Arabic, has the ability to orthographically distinguish "k" from "q," however, in modern Hebrew that distinction is lost in pronunciation, with both becoming "k." As such, this is my theory, modern Hebrew speakers often associate the "q" sound with Arabic and as such, when they know something is an Arabic word and it has a "k" in it, they often assume it must be a "q" because the latter is such an Arab sound. The problem, of course, is why would the Hebrew still be transliterated with a "k?"
Well, I'd suggest, and this is something I need my Hebrew-speaking buddies out there to confirm, that it is common practice in modern Hebrew to prefer the kaph over the quph as the quph is no longer phonemic in modern Hebrew. Thus, when people see a word with obvious Arabic origins containing a kaph, they assume it to actually be a quph.
Why, though, is any of this important? Well, as my buddy Suleiman suggests, it may not be anything deliberate, but the fact that Jewish sources often use the incorrect transliteration is evidence of an inherent prejudice in that they are viewing things only through the Israel lens. Not taking the effort to ensure that tranliteration is correct shows an general unwillingness to investigate in-depth the Palestinian side of the matter, because if they had, they would have been familiarized with the proper transliteration and consequently used it. Additionally, Neo-Con sites like FrontPage Magazine betray their general ingorance and the fact that their only sources are Jewish by preferring the incorrect transliteration. Certainly this doesn't mean that anything referring to it as al-Nakba is inherently trustworthy, it could be just as biased, but a source that uses al-Nakba does seem to have a greater chance of being more neutral since it may have actually taken the time to research.
A stretch? Perhaps, but that's my that's my attempt at philosophizing for the day.
p.s.
Has anyone out there read The Tragedy of Zionism by Bernard Avishai? I read through the preface in a bookstore today and it seemed intriguing. Any thoughts?
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