Glottal stops and definite articles: The real secret of Hizbullah

Glottal stops and definite articles: The real secret of Hizbullah

In a recent post, Mr. Anymore has discussed the pronunciation of the name of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hizbullah. I would like to discuss its morphology.

The name means "Party of God" and is made up of two parts: "Hizb", meaning "party", and "Allah", meaning "God". These two can be put together to make a compound: "Hizb-Allah", which is how the name is spelled on aljazeera.net.

But the word "Allah" begins with a special sound known as hamzat ul-waSl, or a droppable glottal stop. When a word beginning with a droppable glottal stop is preceded by another word, the glottal stop along with its following vowel are both dropped. In such a case, "Allah" would become "-llah". In addition, the word "hizb" can have an extra "u" tacked on, as, I think, the sign of the Nominative, making the whole thing "Hizb ullah", or "Hizbullah". The word is even sometimes spelled with a "-" or an apostrophe between "hizb" and "ullah" to mark the divide between the two elements. (The vowel "u" is for some reason always stuck with the second part of such compounds.) But most of the time the newspapers have decided to write the whole thing as one word, although they have not agreed on what letters to use to represent the Arabic vowels: "Hezbollah" (New York Times), "Hizbollah" (Financial Times), "Hizbullah", or what?

The hamzat ul-waSl occurs in another common word, the definite article "al". The peculiar elision that occurs when the article follows another word can make transcription difficult. For example, should the name "Abdul Qader" be spelled like that, or like this: "Abd ul-Qader"?

The definite article, though, poses another special problem: if it precedes a consonant made with the tip of the tongue, then the "l" is assimilated to that consonant. (The consonants that provoke this assimilation are called the "sun letters" and are as follows: t, th, d, dh, r, z, s, sh, S, T, D, TH, l and n.) This assimilation can occur along with the aforementioned elision to make the definite article all but unrecognizable.

For example, the New York Times had a story today about a radical Islamic group in Britain called "Hizb ut-Tahrir". This "hizb" is the same, I think, as the "hizb" of "Hizbullah". "Ut" is none other than our definite article "al", with the glottal stop and the "a" elided by the preceding nominative marker "u", and the "l" assimilated to the following "t". It is a mystery whose clue is known only to the editors of the New York Times, why they chose to transcribe the two names according to two different principles, not only deciding to write a compound as two words in one case ("hizb ut-tahrir"), and as one in the other ("hezbollah"), but even transcribing the same word "hizb-u" with completely different vowels in the two different cases: "hezbo" in "hezbollah", but "hizbu" in "hizb ut-tahrir". Probably no one even noticed the discrepancy, or else "Hezbollah" was deliberately allowed an anomalous transcription in deference to common usage. Or perhaps there is in the disparity of transcriptions a hidden political message! Only time will tell.

What should we call Pluto?

What should we call Pluto?

According to an article in the Washington Post recently discussed on the American Dialect Society mailing list, the "Planet Definition Committee" met in Prague in early August and proposed that Pluto should no longer be considered a planet. Instead, we should recognize a new "category of subplanets" of which Pluto will be a member, and which will be called Plutons.

Now I am not opposed to naming the new category after Pluto, but "Pluton" is too similar to the original word. In fact, it just another form of the same stem: in Latin, the "n" would be present in every form of the word "Pluto" except in the nominative singular (and therefore the vocative singular). It seems odd to refer to one individual subplanet by the nominative of a word, and to the whole class of subplanets by the oblique stem of the same word. It would have been courteous to supply at least a suffix.

Besides, the proposed name seems likely to be untranslatable. Ben Zimmer has already noted that the French form of Pluto is nothing other than Pluton -- French forms of Latin names tend to be based off the accusative form of the name, in this case "Plutonem". Will the French just call Plutos and Plutons by the same word? The language seems sufficiently plagued by homonyms already.

Par le bois du jinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,
Parle! bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait froid.

We also have Plutón in Spanish and Plutone in Italian.

Resti dunque quel birbon
Tra Proserpina e Pluton.

What is to be done to avoid this confusion?

The only solution, it seems to me, is to give a suffix to the little Plutons. Why has this not been done already? Do their enemies begrudge them even this small favor? Surely some hostile forces must be at work, saying, "If we must finally concede to the hated Plutons the honor of a name, let us at least be sure that they shall not have a proper one!" There is no need to be so stingy with our jots and tittles. We can spare a few letters for our neighbors, the subplanets. If necessary, thousands could probably be culled from the articles in academic journals with no recognizable loss of clarity.

But if the Plutons are given a suffix, what suffix should it be? I am partial to the diminutives, but it would be hard to choose between the contending charms of Plutitos, Plütchen, and Plutoncini; the last has a certain gastronomic appeal. Or we could give up the Roman gods, and name them "Planettes". But to please the sober tastes of the Scientists, I suggest "Plutonoids" (Pluto-like), which has a learned air, and is not too badly formed either.