محمد مرسى عيسى العياط

That’s Arabic for Mohamed Morsi Isa El-Ayyat. President of Egypt. Read it right to left. Maybe you’ve seen his name spelled Muhammed or Mursi? Ever wonder why the difference?

Here’s a common and very simplified representation of the Arabic alphabet (called an ’abjadī sequence):

غ

ظ

ض

ذ

خ

ث

ت

ش

ر

ق

ص

ف

ع

س

ن

م

ل

ك

ي

ط

ح

ز

و

ه

د

ج

ب

أ

gh

ẓ

ḍ

dh

kh

th

t

sh

r

q

ṣ

f

‘

s

n

m

l

k

y

ṭ

ḥ

z

w

h

d

j

b

’

Notice anything? Like there aren’t any vowels in this sequence? See the dots under the Arabic version of Mursi’s/Morsi’s name above? Those are the vowels, but while they look exactly the same, the first word (on the extreme right) is normally translated into English as an “o” in Mohamed, and the vowels in the second from the right are translated, depending on who’s doing the transcribing, as either an “o” or a “u” as in Morsi or Morsi. It could even be an “e” or another vowel, except folks kind of know how to say the Egyptian President’s name, and that just wouldn’t be an “e.”

Yes there are actual symbols for longer vowels, used particularly when dealing with complex, formal or important texts. But short vowels, well, that’s a whole different story.

Wikipedia explains the practice: “Users of Arabic usually write long vowels but omit short ones, so readers must utilize their knowledge of the language in order to supply the missing vowels. However, in the education system and particularly in classes on Arabic grammar these vowels are used since they are crucial to the grammar. An Arabic sentence can have a completely different meaning by a subtle change of the vowels. This is why in an important text such as the Qur’ān [a sample page is pictured above] the three basic vowel signs are mandated.”

So as the son of U.S. diplomat living in Beirut many years ago, I wondered why the local English language newspaper wrote the name of a local politician differently on each of three days: Mid Hit Fit-Fit, Mad Hat Fat-Fat, and Mud Hut Fut-Fut. They just weren’t familiar with how his name was actually pronounced and guessed accordingly. Not the most earth-shattering information on this planet, but hey, in case you wondered why English translations of Arabic names resulted in different spellings! Now you know. Please resume your life!

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes it’s the little things that require explanation.