Shi'a Pundit

Devoted to the viewpoint of Islam of Muhammad SAW and Amir ul-Mumineen, Ali ibn Abi Talib SA, in the Shi'a Fatimi Ismaili Dawoodi Bohra tradition.

I say Qatar, you say Kutter.

I am not normally a pronunciation Nazi. But this Explainer from Slate gets one thing wrong (by omission). The pronunciation of Qatar is not "cutter" but rather "Qutter" - the Q here represents the hard qaf sound of Arabic rather than the soft ke. Think of qaf as the same thicker, glottal sound you see in the word "baroque". Plus, the first vowel is not just "uh" but more like "aw". And even the "t" is really softer, halfway between "t" and "th".

UPDATE: my mistake, and kudos to Slate. They did get it right, way back in December. They even have an audio link.

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About Shi'a Pundit

Shi'a Pundit was launched in 2002 during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The blog focuses on issues pertaining to Shi'a Islam in the west and in the Islamic world. The author is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community. Bohras adhere to the Shi'a Fatimi tradition of Islam, headed by the 52nd Dai al-Mutlaq, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin (TUS).

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