Clashes erupt in Egypt; Brotherhood supporter killed

[Bosonic]

Source: Reuters

Clashes erupted in several Egyptian cities on Friday after supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood took to the streets to demand the end of army-backed rule.

The marches were the most ambitious attempt by the Brotherhood to press its demands since August 14, when authorities smashed two pro-Mursi sit-ins in Cairo and then declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew.

An Egyptian army vehicle fired live rounds in the direction of Muslim Brotherhood supporters who had been pushed away from Cairo's Tahrir Square by security forces, a Reuters witness said. Medical sources said one Brotherhood supporter had died from a gunshot wound in clashes in the center of the capital.

Onlookers threw rocks at the pro-Mursi protesters, who hurled them back. Riot police had earlier fired tear gas to push back the march.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/04/us-egypt-protests-idUSBRE9930HV20131004

[PatrynXX]

1. Mursi?

don't know him. interestingly if your in Egypt it's Morsi even on wikipedia Morsi is the norm or Morsey but Mursi. or Mercy Mercy Merci? O_O smh really need emotes :smh is what I'd be doing right now (shake my head)

[Igel]

3. Not hard to understand.

If you're writing in Arabic, it comes out as مرسى. How you handle the vowels depends on how you were taught and what transcription system you're using--or even what register of Arabic you're accustomed to.

Colloquially the vowel in mrsy's name is "o" in Egypt. But another common system is more classical and would transcribe it as "u".

The same problem comes up in trying to transcribe words like "Ikhwan" or "Jami'at" or, in Syria, "al-Nusra"--how do you handle vowel length? What do you do with the common Egyptian pronunciation "g" of the letter pronounced "j" in most of Arabic, or with the assimilation of al- to the following dental consonant? And for things like the pharyngeal approximant it's even dicier, given its range of pronunciation? Is it "Ikhwaan"? "Gami'at" or even just "Gamia"? Should "al-Nusra" be "Annusra"? "Annosra"?

Morsiy's name doesn't have such an incredibly standard spelling that such issues can't come up, esp. if the media source's stylebook says otherwise and the media source is close enough to Arabic to even be aware of the issue.

In some transcription cases the dominant "preferred" country can weigh in. So the old transcription "Peking" was dropped with the PRC's adoption of pinyin as official, so "Beijing" took over. Oddly, the pronunciation wasn't affected in the least, since the "p" in "Peking" represented the same sound that "b" does in pinyin, the "k" in "Peking" represented the same sound as the "j" does in pinyin. Etc. To some extent Egyptian nationalism also matters--their Arabic is more divergent from standard classically-tinged Arabic than Levantine Arabic, and so they'd rather have the standard swing their way, given their status as the #1 Arabic country. (That others don't share the Egyptians' view that Egypt is the #1 country is to be expected.)

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. The Egyptian army doing what it does best: shooting demonstrators.

Yay, coupocracy!