--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Bryon Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Anybody know which pronunciation is actually correct for Iraq?
> eye-wrack or eee-rock?

It is "ee-wrack."   I have a friend who is an "ee-ran"ian  immigrant, 
and he is very insistant upon this.

> What about Qatar?
> I've always heard it as "kah-TAR", but now I'm hearing "cutter".

According to dictionary.com and most news outlets, Qatar rhymes 
with "gutter."   The first syllable is tricking, and doesn't really 
have an English equivalent. 

> While I'm at it, how about Moscow?
> The talking heads all seem to like "moss-CO", rhyming with Bosco
> I used to hear it pronounced "moss-COW".
> I had a Russian/German-language major as a college roommate and,
> IIRC, he said in actual Russian Moscow is pronounced something like
> "mosk-va", and the English "moss-COW" version was
> derived from the German translation, Moskao, while the "moss-CO"
> pronunciation is utterly bogus.

Gautam can probably answer this... if not, I have a friend who is a 
Russian immigrant from St. Pete's, and I'll see what he says....   
Its possibly that it is a situation similary to how the correct 
pronunciation of "Germany" is "Deustchland" - i.e. somehow its just a 
completely different pronunciation in English than in Russian.

JDG

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