Usama or Osama?

[SHRED]

Can someone explain why the two names?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Arabic doesn't transliterate into English very consistently.

So you will often get different spellings. I've seen Osama/Usama for years - it doesn't mean anything.

[SHRED]

7. I noticed on FOX they go with Usama

My guess is to be different in an attempt to impress the mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers.

[Lost-in-FL]

2. both are fine. nt

[Drale]

3. Its like Gaddaffi

If you notice everyone spells it differently.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. door nail

or so I've heard.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Wsama. nt

[kestrel91316]

6. They aren't "two different names". The name, being Arabic, has a spelling

IN ARABIC. There is no exact translation into the english alphabet.

Seriously? This is all you have to say??

[Iggo]

8. Doesn't matter anymore.

;)

[wuushew]

9. So is it a long O or not?

phonetically isn't the O spelling more logical? It is either one or the other.

[Odin2005]

10. It's different ways of dealing with Arabic's emphatic consonants.

In Arabic I and U lower to E and O when around emphatic consonants, which are pronounced with the base of the tongue pulled back, some American English dialects do the same with R.

So Osama's name in a phonemic transcription would be "Us'ama Bin Lad'in.

Same with Koran versus Quran, or Mohammed vs. Muhammad.