Gaddafi, Kadafi, or Qaddafi? Why is the Libyan leader’s name spelled so many different ways?

Take a look at any news source today and you’ll see the name of Libya’s de facto leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi. Look a little closer and you’ll see a multitude of spellings for the notorious politician’s surname such as Gaddafi, Kadafi and Qaddafi. Why does a name that has been making headlines for decades have so many varied spellings?

Transliteration is the reason – the transcription of a word, or in this case a name, into corresponding letters of another alphabet. Written Arabic is oftentimes unvocalized – in other words the vowels are rarely written out and must be furnished by a reader familiar with the language. As with Chinese and Hindi, the Arabic script contains a copious amount of diacritics – dots and accents added to a letter to change the sound. Add to this, there seems to be an absence of any sort of authority for transliterating Arabic names.

The Arabic language is one of the most widely spoken Semitic languages in the world and the pronunciation of words may vary with different linguistic varieties of the language. Even among Arabic speakers, Arabic of North Africa is often incomprehensible to an Arabic speaker from the Gulf Region.

A famous roadblock for any Arabic to English translator is the Arabic pronunciation of the letter “G,” as in “good.” Since such a sound does not exist in the Arabic language, the first letter of “Gaddafi” can be replaced with a “q”, “k” or “gh” sound. This helps to explain the numerous interpretations for “Gaddafi.”

The variation of spelling may depend on what news source you choose to gather your information from. The Associated Press and CNN favor “Gadhafi”, The New York Times spells it “el-Qaddafi” and the Los Angeles Times uses “Kadafi.” Interestingly, Al Jazeera, which uses “Gaddafi”, does not use the “el” article in the name while the New York Times does.

source: dictionary.com