Millhouse

It's Abo Zaby

mikewot

A new middle east crisis erupted last night as Dubai Television was refused permission to broadcast 'The Flintstones'.
A spokesman for the channel said....
'A claim was made that people in Dubai would not understand the humour, but we have heard that people in - Abu Dhabi Do.'

I'll get my coat :-)

shiva

Don't care about AD as have heard every variation under the sun from every nationality but mad in at drives me nuts

shiva

Actually what drives me nuts is when I say ill meet someone at the madinat and they say where forcing me to eventually concede and say mad in at

Millhouse

I like the radio adverts... 'A bottle of Russia's finest down at the mad-in-at'

Ethos83

The curious question is why there is even a 't' at the end of madinat given that madina/t is merely the English pronunciation of an Arabic word. If the 't' is always to be silent then what was the point of adding it to the English spelling? In the Latin alphabet?

So I can't criticise people for saying Mah-dee-naht when they simply don't know they're technically not supposed to.

As for AD, I always liked Ab Dhabs....

Miss Anne Thrope

Ma-DEE-naht is ok - as long as the emphasis is the same as when you say Madina. The t is supposed to softly elide into the other word. MADDY-naht is just wrong and what seems to be commonly used among British expats here, alas. But it's not just the mispronunciation that makes it sound so ridiculous. When the name of the place, Souq Madinat Jumeirah, translates as Jumeirah city market, it seems perverse (or just ignorant) to choose the word city to specify the place.

Anyway, the English spelling is just a best effort to transliterate not just a different language but a different alphabet with very different phonemes. People moaning, as they often do, about the different spellings of the same places here just illustrates their failure to grasp this fairly fundamental aspect of the language of our host region. Very few of us expats here bother to learn Arabic, understandably, since we are constantly reminded that we are but temporary interlopers. But a little curiosity would be appropriate to avoid complete twattishness.

I'm just saying...

weasel decentral

wrong its called Aboo Zaaaby.

I will now proceed on a hectoring lecture on why you are a cultural philistine for not knowing this....begin hectoring....rah rah rah bladdy rah rah....ancient culture...typical tourists..rah rah .../ hectoring

Millhouse

don't blame me, blame my alphabet and lack of sounds.

OleJanx

or, for those unaware of the Hidey-holes and pleasure centres, Screamin' Ab Dhabs.....