How Do You Pronounce Qatar? Probably Incorrectly.

Sooner or later the time will come for everyone, or at least for all those who do not speak Arabic but hope to discuss This year’s World Cup without sounding like a complete idiot.

What happens when conversational situations force us to utter the word “Qatar” in public?

Is it Kuh-TAR, like a guitar? Or Kuh-TAH, like the pronunciation of catarrh in English, sore throat with phlegm? What about those business executives who are always talking about you being 100% wrong and should say KUH-ter, like mowers (or gutters), or something more akin to KAT-ar?

Why does everyone on TV seem to have a different answer? Can we trust random YouTube tutorials? Is there a way to say it without adding “or however you pronounce it”? Why hasn’t FIFA issued an official directive yet? After all, it’s been 12 years since football’s governing body started all this by awarding the sport’s biggest championship to a small Gulf country.

But while a four-page phonetic guide created for journalists traveling to Qatar offers a degree of linguistic relief – providing step-by-step pronunciations of handy phrases like “Help !” and “I was robbed” – it’s silent for names of places where you might need to say them.

Let’s establish here that the problem is not intentional ignorance or cultural arrogance, but rather the very different pronunciation of the word “Qatar” in Arabic — قطر in Arabic script. with English pronunciation:

If you’re an English speaker, you’re probably saying it wrong, but only in the sense that your pronunciation of “Paris” or “Chile” would be considered wrong from a Parisian or Chilean point of view.

That means the real question is: What kind of false is right?

“There are no real guidelines,” said Neil Buethe, communications director for the United States Soccer Federation, whose team has slowly arrived in the country with names players wish they could pronounce. “It’s definitely an argument.”

Yes, it has. Online, a Qatari named Mr. Q posted a series of visitor videos, including a start, “I went ahead and noticed that a lot of foreigners are teaching foreigners how to pronounce Qatar.” He then showed several clips of people saying “Qatar” in various painful ways on American television and added: “I respect you, you respect me, we all respect now. respect each other – but no.”

Hassan Al Thawadi, head of the Supreme Committee that directs the preparations for the World Cup, said in an interview that the pronunciation of the word “Qatar” differs even within the host country.

This has not helped alleviate the general confusion among visitors.

“Everybody said ‘KUH-ter’ when we went there for the first time last December,” Buethe said of his trip to the country ahead of the World Cup. “But we’ve had many conversations with individuals and with people in the league, and they told us that’s not true: Don’t say, ‘KUH-ter.'”

Jenny Taft, Fox Sports sideline reporter, will broadcast the World Cup in the United States, said the network made a command decision.

“I don’t know who called, but we’ll go with Ka-TAR,” she said in an interview. “I’m not sure why, but it was a decision that was made. And it’s unique, isn’t it? Like, maybe I said KUH-ter which led to this. But Ka-TAR is, I guess, the more recognizable country pronunciation.”

Walker Zimmerman, a quarterback for the United States team, says that’s what he plans to do, too. “I say Ka-TAR,” Zimmerman said in an interview in the fall. “I know that might not be the correct way — KUH-ter is for people who can get a little better at what they’re talking about — but I would choose Ka-TAR.”

German television network ZDF has taken a different approach: Its employees have been notified via email that they will be accompanying KAT-ar. Martin Tyler, legendary Sky Sports broadcaster who is making his 12th World Cup this year, said he would do the same.

However, none of the idiosyncratic decisions addressed the key questions: What is the actual pronunciation of the word? And what is our problem?

First, says Sarab Al Ani, an Arabic lecturer at Yale University, the first consonant in the word Qatar doesn’t actually translate into a K or a Q sound. It’s actually a glottal sound, which means it’s a glottal sound. emanating from the glottis, at the back of the throat – a muscular English speaker doesn’t get much exercise.

“What’s happening is that the end of your tongue touches the roof of your mouth lightly and quickly, creating the first sound,” says Al Ani.

She suggests flattening your tongue and tilting your head slightly forward to shorten the distance between your tongue and throat. “It makes the distance as close as possible,” she explains. “You have to push your tongue back a little to make contact with the roof of your mouth — just a light touch, one second — and then make a sound.”

She said the word Qatar with emphasis on the first syllable. Then the T was quick and explosive—“the black T,” she called it, a little hollow. To produce the correct sound, it helps to flatten your tongue by bending it down slightly. The A is pronounced quickly, and the R, Al Ani says, “is more closely pronounced like the Spanish R.”

She continued to perform a few times, then said encouragingly that English speakers, including World Cup reporters, might need a lot of practice before they could get it right.

Now that we’ve made that clear, it’s like, what are we going to do with our new gloom and newfound knowledge?

Author Mary Norris, a proper usage expert and former copy editor at The New Yorker, says foreign landmarks can be tiny pronunciation minefields. Use American pronunciation and you sound deliberately ignorant; use the original and you risk sounding pretentious aggressive.

She mentioned the Kabul conundrum – Ka-BOOL? Or COB-ble? — and admits that she has no independent information on the pronunciation of “Qatar.” “I’m sure in American English we wouldn’t come up with an Arabic pronunciation,” says Norris.

She said she once heard her doctor mention a country he called “cotter” on the phone. “I think he was saying ‘cutter’,” she said, “but in a Brooklyn accent.”

If all this only adds to your confusion, please listen to the soothing message conveyed by an official at the State Consulate General of Qatar in New York. The official, who asked not to use her name because she is not authorized to speak to the media, said that every day she hears English speakers mispronouncing the country’s name in many ways. different ways.

But if you’re going with Ka-TAR, you’ll be fine, she said. (“Cutter” is less okay.) “It’s not your fault,” she continued. “Some letters in Arabic that you don’t have in English, so you can’t pronounce it the same way we do. We know you’re doing the best you can.”