R: Re: another silly phonology question

John wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Jim Taylor wrote:
>
> > In the Arabic of the Gulf States (Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait etc.) the
letter
> > 'qaf' is pronounced and often transcribed as /g/.
> >
> > eg. 'Cairo is beautiful':
> > /el qahira gamiila/ (Egyptian Arabic)
> > /al gahira dZamiila/ (Gulf Arabic)
>
> Elsewhere, too, apparently: Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi's name once appeared at the
> bottom of a letter (in English) as "Gadhafi".
>
Who is this? Is he the president of Libia? That, at least in Italy, is named
Gheddafi /ged'dafi/.

Luca