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MUSCOVITE Posted 14 years ago
Vocabulary

Iraq

Dear English Teachers,

I'd like to forward to you a naive question I was asked the other day :-)
It is about the spelling of the word "Iraq".
This spelling came into English from what language?
Why do you spell it with the letter 'q' ( not 'k', 'c', 'ch', 'ck', and the like)?

Thanks!

mus-te
  

Top answer

Not naive at all; I had no idea. This is what the Online Etymology Dictionary says: Iraq country name, 1920, from an Arabic name attested since 6c. for the region known in Gk.

— Mister Micawber

  • Not naive at all; I had no idea.
  • This is what the Online Etymology Dictionary says: Iraq country name, 1920, from an Arabic name attested since 6c.
  • for the region known in Gk.
  • as Mesopotamia; often said to be from Arabic ` araqa , covering notions such as "perspiring, deeply rooted, well-watered," which may reflect the impression the lush river-land made on desert Arabs .
  • So maybe it's the Q in araqa .
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6 Answers
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Not naive at all; I had no idea. This is what the Online Etymology Dictionary says:

Iraq
country name, 1920, from an Arabic name attested since 6c. for the region known in Gk. as Mesopotamia; often said to be from Arabic `araqa, covering notions such as "perspiring, deeply rooted, well-watered," which may reflect the impression the lush river-land made on desert Ara
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In English, as we know, "q" is invariably followed by "u". A few words and many place names taken from Arabic are exceptions to this rule. The reason is that Arabic is written in a different script than English, not really an alphabet as we know it, and obviously uses different sounds. In the process of transliterating Arabic into English, one of the gutturals (that has its own letter in Arabic) i
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Mister Micawber:
enoon:

Thanks a lot for your extremely interesting comments! Emotion: yes
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RHUD gives Irak as well but I don't think I have ever seen it in English texts. This spelling is common in some other languages, though. My native Finnish is one of them.

CB
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As a sidelight, in the US, about half of the population pronounces it: "eye-RACK."
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MUSCOVITEIraq
The 'q' is the transcription of an Arabic sound that does not exist in English, namely the unvoiced uvular plosive, which English speakers hear as a 'k', though it is produced farther back in the throat than a 'k', which itself is an unvoiced velar plosive. You can find it on any IPA chart (International Phonetic Alphabet), where it is symbolize
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