"O"  :) [solved]

hello
recently got a big Omdurman 20 qirsh, AH1304.

I wonder, how "O" in Omdurman pronounced in Arabic? Umdurman?
And why we use " O" in Arabic local words like geographic dots , if Arabic doesnot have a letter " O" at all?
best
D

I guess it was simpler for English transliteration of Arabic :)

At least some Arabic speakers say it with U: https://forvo.com/word/أم_درمان/#ar
But it possible that people who live in Omdurman itself pronounce it in different way (I don't know). Standard Arabic does not have O sound, but some dialects have more sounds than the standard Arabic.

P.S.: أم (Umm) means "mother".

If you want to pronounce it in standard Arabic, it will be "u" more or less as in "foot" or "put".

Standard Arabic has only three vowels a, i, u, both short and long. A name like Coca Cola becomes Kuukaa Kuulaa in writing (كوكا كولا). Pepsi becomes Biibsii (بيبسي) because they don't have "e" nor "b".

Thanks,
Yes, I know. I read Arabic more or less. But I dont understand why Umdurman is O-mdurman . Id agree if it would be European name. but it is arabic name, and it is a name of city, which is not so popular in Europe, so it could be simply like its pronounced in Arabic.
And if " Umdurman" is Omdurman, why " Umm-Al-Kaiwain" is " Umm-al -kaiwan" and not " Omm- al -Kaiwain "
:)

It is probably just how the British heard it said and is now considered the English form of the name in common usage in English (much like Moscow is the English form of Moskva). The Arabic Umm Durman is probably the way the Sudanese would transliterate the Arabic characters and is used in multiple Internet entries if you do a search.
From Wikipedia entry Languages of Sudan: "Sudan is the only country in the Arab world to have English as a co-official language."

Will

In transcription, short vowels are often transcribed in the "unstressed version", such as "o" instead "u" and "e" instead of "i".

And yes, in spoken language there are all kinds of "shades" that cannot be transcribed with the standard Arabic alphabet.

Also, we often lose some consonants unless we use numbers (Sa3ad, Na77as, etc.) or an apostrophe (Sa'ad, Qur'an, etc.) which is not ideal.

Thank you vm, dear friends.

yours
d.