Post #1404120
2026-03-06 03:13 UTC
@oddhack "Allah" is the most commonly accepted transliteration for the Arabic word for "God". Any transliteration of the Arabic words for Party of God that doesn't include "allah" in it is sus and makes me wonder what agenda is being pushed.
Incidentally, the U.S. government itself uses "Hizballah" as their transliteration of the name. E.g., https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/hizballah.html
It appears that the Western press is the primary group pushing the "hezbollah" transliteration. Why?
Replies (1)
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@oddhack@mstdn.social 2026-03-06 04:18
@badtux Google Ngram only gets you so far but it does seem like the usage has diverged significantly since the late 90s. I don't know how to filter "the Western press" out since they are probably a large fraction of the data going into the Ngram dataset to begin with. Maybe figure out who sets the style guides.