(no subject)

Читаю в American Heritage объяснение альтернативного спеллинга слова Koran (Qur'an):

Arabic has two sounds, transcribed as k and q, that remind speakers of English
of the sound (k). The sound transcribed k is quite similar to the English sound
(k), while the voiceless uvular stop q strikes English speakers as a special kind of (k)
made very deep in the throat. The difference between the two is very important in
Arabic and helps distinguish words, such as kalb, "dog," and qalb, "heart." The sound
written as an apostrophe (') in Qur'an is a glottal stop, the same sound heard in the
middle of the English exclamation Uh-oh! and in the Cockney pronunciation of t
heard in such words as bottle and little. (Writers should take care to use an apostrophe
(') rather than a single quotation mark facing the opposite direction (') when
writing Qur'an, since the latter symbol (') is sometimes used to represent another
Arabic sound made deep in the throat, called cayn.) The Arabic name for the sacred
text of Islam, al-qur'an, contains both the sound of q and the glottal stop, so that the
English spelling Qur'an can be considered a closer rendering of the Arabic pronunciation
and the way it is spelled in the Arabic alphabet. Yet another spelling occasionally
encountered in English texts, Qur'aan, attempts to represent the long a, of Arabic
al-qur'an by means of double aa.

Попробовали вчера с Ваней произнести, опираясь на эти инструкции. Думаю, если бы арабы услышали результат, прокляли бы нас, как Салмана Рушди.
Особенно глоттальный стоп нам удался. Это же надо так завернуть: звук, который слышится в середине восклицания Uh-oh!!!