JEDDAH: The US President-elect Donald Trump will have to deal with a long list of Middle East related issues upon assuming his duties next January, ranging from the ever-elusive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, to combatting Daesh and resolving crises in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
But the one thing he may never be able to resolve is how the Arabic media print his name.
The correct spelling of Mr. Trump’s name has in fact already been added to the long list of topics that Arabs seem to disagree on.
The conflict originates from the fact that the Arabic language doesn’t have letters for the “P” in the Latin alphabet, which can only be substituted by a “B”. As such, Trump becomes “TrumB”, just as Pepsi becomes “Bebsi” in Arabic script.
But there is also no substitute for the letter “U”, with the closest Arabic letter that can be used being “waw”. This is however the equivalent to the letter “o” in the Latin alphabet.
And so the future POTUS’ name sounds like “Troomb” once pronounced in Arabic.
As such, many media outlets opted to write the recently elected Republican’s name with an “alef” – equivalent to an “A” – and as such, “Tramb” in Arabic remains the preferred option for most.
Sultan Al-Tamimi, Social Media Editor in the Saudi daily Al-Yaum, told Arab News that the newspaper spells the new US President-elect’s name as “Tramp”.
“The reason is the way of the pronunciation. Most writers spell Tramp in Arabic language. It is important to spell (A) with this name in the Arabic language,” he said.
Pamela Kesrouani, a Lebanese editor at Raseef 22, an Arabic-language news-site, said that her newsroom uses “Tramb”. Speaking to Arab News, she said that it is “important to select a way to spell the name in Arabic in the closest possible way to English.”
Arabic spellings of “Trump” can also pose a different sort of challenge, especially for those who pronounce the “p” in Arabic as in “Tramp” – which, in English, means “vagabond”.
This could possibly explain why, in the days following the announcement of the US election result, many news outlets – including some regional newspapers as well as the Dubai-based newscaster Al Arabiya – adopted a different spelling which drops the vowel altogether. As such Trump in Arabic simply became “Trmb”.
This naturally caused confusion, and some media outlets such as the Doha-based Al Jazeera still alternate between the two spellings (“Tramb” and “Trmb”).
Mohammed Izoudouten, a Moroccan journalist with the Arabic edition of Huffington Post, admitted that there are different ways of spelling the US President-elect’s name. Some Arabic media prefer to spell it “Tramp”, and others “Trmp”, he pointed out. Huffington Post’s Arabic edition favors “Tramp”, with this option adopted to imitate the pronunciation of “Trump” in English media.
Speaking to Arab News, Izoudouten said that the editorial management decides the way of spelling English names – but other Arab media may have different ideas.
The question of how to spell foreign names in Arabic has long been a problem for Arab journalists.
The recent appointment of French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault also posed a pronunciation challenge in the Middle East. Given that the both the “L” and the “T” are silent letters in his last name, the French diplomat’s last name is actually pronounced as “Ayro”. But that, in many Arabic dialects, translates to “his male organ”. As such, most Middle Eastern newsrooms discreetly decided to write and pronounce his name with an emphasis on the “L” and the “T”.
Hardline French grammar teachers would likely disapprove – but this editorial decision has certainly saved Arab news presenters much embarrassment.
Tramb… Trmb? US president-elect’s name a challenge for Arab media
Tramb… Trmb? US president-elect’s name a challenge for Arab media
