حزب الله

i'm not sure how to spell "hezbollah" anymore. my general policy with arabic words is that if the word has a fairly standard english spelling, i will go with that spelling--even if that spelling doesn't reflect the original arabic very well.

"hezbollah" is a pretty good example. that's how i learned to spell it long before i knew any arabic words. only later did i discover it was really two different words and that the vowels didn't really match how an arab would say it. someone later told me that the american spelling is closer to the farsi pronunciation. why our media would pick up on the farsi pronunciation for a group of arabs is beyond me. maybe the word got coined in the arab press through an iranian source. in any case, "hezbollah" seemed to be fairly well accepted so that's what i have been going with.

but recently, there seems to be a bit of a drift closer to the arabic pronunciation. i noticed that at least some reuters articles have switched to "hizbollah."

so i googled around and got the following data-set:

"hezbollah" 8990 news hits
"hizbollah" 1,420 news hits
"hizbullah" 843 news hits
"hizballah" 230 news hits
"hizb allah" 7 news hits, and all of the articles were from foreign sources.

i'm guessing that the number of american reporters who have spent time in the arab-speaking world is growing. i wonder if a little exposure to the language is what is driving the drift away from "hezbollah."