User:Whytecypress/sandbox

Name
Because of the lack of standardization of transliterating written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been transliterated in many different ways into English and other Latin alphabet languages. Even though the Arabic spelling of a word does not change, the pronunciation may vary in different varieties of Arabic, which may cause a different romanization. In standard Arabic the name معمر القذافي (pointed مُـعَـمَّـرُ الـقَـذافـي ) is pronounced. Here represents a pharyngeal sound (ع), not present in English. The is geminated (doubled), but can be simplified. In spoken Libyan Arabic the voiceless uvular plosive (ق) may be replaced with  or  (or even ; and  (ذ) (same as English "th" in "this") may be replaced with  (sometimes geminated) or . Vowel  alternates with  in spoken Arabic. Case endings are dropped:  → ). Thus, may be pronounced  colloquially. The definite article al- (ال) is often omitted. Here, the initial is silent because of the preceding.

In short, if the alternative spellings for each place of his name is shown in brackets: $${\color{OliveGreen}m \begin{cases}u\\o\end{cases} a \begin{cases}mm\\m\end{cases} ar \begin{cases}u\\\varnothing\end{cases}} ~ {\color{RedViolet}\begin{cases}al-\\\varnothing\end{cases} \begin{cases}Q\\G\\K\\Kh\end{cases} \begin{cases}aa\\a\end{cases} \begin{cases}dd\\d\\t\end{cases} \begin{cases}h\\\varnothing\end{cases} afi}$$ and the maximal amount of combinations is $$2*2*2*2*4*2*3*2 = 3*2^8 = 768\,\! $$ However, not all are possible, as some alternatives are most probably combined with others, or even impossible with other (for example, simplification of geminated [m:] usually implies simplification of [a:])

An article published in the London Evening Standard in 2004 lists a total of 37 spellings of his name, while a 1986 column by The Straight Dope quotes a list of 32 spellings known at the Library of Congress. This extensive confusion of naming was used as the subject for a segment of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update in the early 1980s.

"Muammar Gaddafi" is the spelling used by TIME magazine, BBC News, the majority of the British press and by the English service of Al-Jazeera. The Associated Press, CNN, and Fox News use "Moammar Gadhafi". The Edinburgh Middle East Report uses "Mu'ammar Qaddafi" and the U.S. Department of State uses "Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi". The Xinhua News Agency uses "Muammar Khaddafi" in its English reports.

In 1986, Gaddafi reportedly responded to a Minnesota school's letter in English using the spelling "Moammar El-Gadhafi". The title of the homepage of algathafi.org reads "Welcome to the official site of Muammar Al Gathafi".