The great Garangao mystery solved!

[qatarperegrine]

Here and here I have discussed the Gulf tradition of Garangao, and the students' inability to spell the word. (A colleague even mentioned the other day that she Googled Garangao to try to find out more, and my weblog was the second hit. w00t!)

This week there are Garangao posters up at school, and they have the (a?) spelling of the word in Arabic. It is: قرنقعوه (Qrnq'wa).

That explains why students seemed confused as to whether to transliterate it K or a G; in Gulf Arabic (Khaleeji) the ق (q) is often pronounced like a g. This time last year I thought they were saying a غ (gh) sound, but I was wrong.

Comments

Check your typing

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

The 'qaff' is the letter with *two* dots over it. One dot is the "f" sound.

Re: Check your typing

[qatar.livejournal.com]

On my computer, that is showing up as a qaf. I increased the font size in case that was the problem (the dots were pretty teeny before). Is it still a faa' on your screen?

[aristopheles.livejournal.com]

Nope, it looks much better now!