Throughout the 12 years since FIFA president Sepp Blatter dramatically opened a scandalous envelope and introduced the world to Qatar, millions of Westerners have learned plenty about the 2022 World Cup's controversial host. They have learned about scorching temperatures and migrant worker exploitation. They've learned how oil transformed a peninsular desert into a bustling international hub. They've learned that Qatari law criminalizes homosexuality and forbids alcohol. They've learned how a tiny emirate the size of Connecticut plans to stage the planet's grandest sporting event.
," Al-Ansari added,"but sometimes that sounds like 'gutter' so we preferOther Arabic speakers have explained that the English word closest to the native pronunciation might actually be “guitar.” In Gulf dialects, the first consonant in “Qatar” is more a “g” than a hard “c.”
“It's like we have sleeping muscles,” says Mohammed Aldawood, an Arabic professor at American University in Washington D.C. “We have to wake them up to pronounce those correctly.” “In any language — like for me when I speak English — if I don't have a sound in my [first language], I will replace it with the closest sound in my language,” El Maimeur says. When faced with an “emphatic” Arabic sound, non-native speakers, including her students, “will replace it with its non-emphatic counterpart.”
“Any language, any word,” Aldawood says. “Over time, people start changing it to make it easier to say.”
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