Disputatio:Usama bin Ladin

I understand the need for a simple standard of transliteration, but I repeat my objection that representing the arabic tā’-marbūṭa^h as <t> is patently absurd. --Iustinus 17:59, 18 Martii 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right, and I'm sure the standard could be adjusted to allow for this. Why is "son of" bin here, when it's ibn in other Arabic names? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:12, 18 Martii 2008 (UTC)

That I do not know, but I know this is not the only instance. Ibn is of course one of those words like Ism, where the Proto-Semitic form is normally reconstructed as *binu, *šimu and so on (cf. Hebrew ben, shem, etc.), but the Arabic treats it as vowelless (i- being normally used to break up initial clusters). So maybe the PS form actually was *bnu, or some such. This is neither here nor there, of course. I don't know what the rules are in Arabic for when this word is expressed as ibn and when it's expressed as bin. (And in case anyone asks, since he is not actually Osama son of Laden, we don't translate the bin to filius here).

Ioscius has asked me what transliteration I actually prefer here. I don't have a full ideal standard for Arabic in Latin, so let's set asside for the moment all issues except for how to transliterate the tā’-marbūṭa^h. For the purposes of article titles, and general Latinization (but not for the purposes of more scientific transcription), I think we should just drop the letter entirely. This would result (in this particular instance) in Usama, which is both closer to the actual pronunciation, and more Latin-friendly. --Iustinus 19:57, 18 Martii 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and of course I should specify that I am talking about cases where the tā’-marbūṭa^h is actually silent, in case that wasn't obvious. --Iustinus 20:11, 18 Martii 2008 (UTC)

Is knowing whether it's silent likely to be a problem? I guess we can check by looking at how other wikis spell the name (in this case, everyone else has Usama or Osama). Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:25, 18 Martii 2008 (UTC)

As for bin بن, this is the form used in between names as opposed to the noun ibn ابن. In classical Arabic his first name أسامة would actually be pronounced Usāmatu, and the t is not silent in conjunction with words starting with a vowel, but since the standard transcription for ta marbuta is a(h) (and the word following does NOT start with a vowel either), it would be reasonable to move the page to Usama bin Ladin (or Osama bin Laden). This would also facilitate declination: Usama, -ae, m.--Ceylon 22:30, 18 Martii 2008 (UTC)

What about famous names like بن رشد, ابن سینا and so on? I suppose Rušd and Sīnā aren't actually names so they don't count. But yes, Andrew, it shouldn't be hard to figure out which words the ة is or is not pronounced in, because transliterating as t when silent is a ... unique convention to say the least. --Iustinus 01:54, 19 Martii 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I C&Ped بن رشد from en:Averroes, not noticing that it does indeed say Bin! But... but... the transliteration still says ibn! --Iustinus 01:59, 19 Martii 2008 (UTC)

In the case of Avicenna and Averroes, the reason for the variant ibn is that these names are commonly used without the first name preceding them. Wehr says it all: "nach Pers.-Namen und vor dem Vaternamen بن statt ابن". You'll find that en:Arabic name is not quite correct / precise on this.

Concerning tā marbūta, it is the context that determines whether it is pronounced or not (except when preceded by ا as in موالاة, where it is even pronounced in pausa) which means that it is never pronounced when words are used on their own (such as in lemmata, except when they consist of more than one word). In conjunction with other words, it is in theory (and 'good' practise such as Quran readings, speeches, TV announcements) always pronounced except before punctuation marks, but in standard spoken Arabic (not on TV) only before vowels to mark off the word. That's why it's called تاء مربوطة‎‎ or 'connected ta' and why the standard transliteration transcribes it as 'a' (or sometimes 'ah').--Ceylon 07:11, 19 Martii 2008 (UTC)