When Jordan - or Transjordan, at the time - was established with lines on a map after the first world war, it was done so under a British 'mandate'. Meanwhile the neighbours to the North, Lebanon and Syria, were 'mandated' to the French. These different colonial pasts still manifest themselves today in different ways, large and small. For example, in Lebanon, bank notes are Arabic on one side, French on the other. In Jordan, they are Arabic and English. In Beirut, you can apparently get great coffee and croissants all over the place (I am looking forward to finding out!). Not so, Amman.
One thing that is perhaps a legacy of the British mandate in Jordan is the prevalence of the English language on signs. While there are some things that need no explaining when you are in a foreign place - florists are evidently florists, shoe shops are shoe shops - having signs in a language you can understand makes it infinitely easier to negotiate a city. It suddenly becomes possible to distinguish a dentist's office from a lawyer's without too much trouble and a government building from a police station. Particularly in a town where no one uses street addresses, this is a useful thing.
But one of the things that is both fascinating and charming is a total lack of spelling consistency for transliterated arabic words - particularly place names. You can walk down a street and see public street signs - presumably put up by the same people in the same city department - within 20 metres of each other using completely different spellings. Jebel Lwebdieh and Jabal Al-Waibdeh are the same place. So are Fuhays, Fuheis and F'hais; Bireen, Birayn and Birein; and Shmaisani, Shmeisani and Shemesani.
For the copy editors among you, imagine reviewing reports that are the result of many different contributors, with no advance agreement on consistent spellings. I am currently working with a draft report in which there is a King Hussein road frequently mentioned - or King Husayn - or King Hussain. All the same road. Random selection of spellings. It is not uncommon for an author to use two different spellings in two adjacent paragraphs. Or maps and legends to be inconsistent. And I guess it doesn't matter if we all understand. (Though it usually induces a "serenity now" moment for me!)
I have started taking arabic classes (and loving them!) and am coming to the conclusion that the inconsistency stems from the fact that any of these transliterated spellings are really just a pale approximation of the sounds that should be coming out of your mouth. In my notebook, I have written the word "we" phonetically on three subsequent pages as ihna... ehna... nihna... and none of them is really quite right.
All of this also means that I am coming to terms with no consistent spelling of my own name - Hana, Hanna, Hannah, Hanah - whatever works.
The same thing happens in Sri Lanka when names are translated into roman letters. My partner's last name is spelled differently from his brother's and sister's. When we chose family names for the kids, we picked the spelling that their aunt and uncle (but not their father or grandparents) use. They're all the same name in Sinhala... Makes for some confusion on school forms.
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