What's in a name? Quite a lot actually. The case for calling them ISIL and Daesh, NOT ISIS.
I would entreat everyone here to not call them ISIS but ISIL or Daesh. My reasoning is twofold. One of the big ones is that they just hate Daesh and the appropriate connotations it means in Arabic, specifically the "tread upon" meaning.
The second reason I feel is even more critical. Hitler took the Swatika from Asia and converted it into a symbol of hate when those who know its history know it's a symbol of peace. We let Hitler forever taint that symbol outside the Eastern world instead of making the troops aware that it can mean something different.
Following this vein of thought it is even more urgent to call them ISIL or Daesh when one considers the positive history the word Isis has had for women. If we let this hateful, bigoted misogynistic group claim the word it will be an enormous obfuscation to an extremely significant, singular piece of history for women. I'm not speaking specifically of the Egyptian Goddess Isis, rather I speak of the one referenced in Apuleius' "The Golden Ass". The Cult Of Isis was a Monotheistic religious group that believe a woman created the universe, not a man.
Can we please not help this terrorist group by calling them ISIL and Daesh instead in headers? I know it's difficult to change the current given how identifiable the name has been but please try.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)If you call them Daesh, sure I know what you are talking about, but I think it just makes sense to use the name we have been using for a few years by now. Changing it now likely won't take away the stigma on the name isis any sooner anyway.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Just because someone screwed up 5 or more years ago doesn't mean it needs changed now.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)I don't like this constant rewriting of history and changing names.
PyaarRevolution
(814 posts)They are rewriting history, these misogynistic scum are stealing something that should be precious to women by using it. It's yet another thing we're letting these radical nuts take from women if we use it.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)This group called themselves "ISIS" at the beginning and I still call them that, not "Islamic State" or "IS" or any of the other names.
I think their name is an important part of the phenomenon. It was a rebranding of Al Qaeda to attract young impressionable westerners. The name also has some connotations which I think are interesting.
brush
(53,801 posts)However ISIS and ISIL mean just about the same thing Islamic State in Irag and Syria and Islamic State in the Levant, respectively.
The term "Levant" historically meaning that particular "region" in the Middle East.
Dale Neiburg
(698 posts)I refuse to use the name Isis for such unspeakable filth.
BlueMTexpat
(15,370 posts)and completely agree that they are unspeakable filth.
Docreed2003
(16,868 posts)Sorry to thread jack, just needed to rep one of my favorite Dylan songs. That being said, great threat! Call the bastards Daesh, specifically because it gets under their skin.
BlueMTexpat
(15,370 posts)translator discussing the term. I prefer to use "Daesh" myself and, if you read the article, you'll understand why we really should use that term..
https://www.freewordcentre.com/blog/2015/02/daesh-isis-media-alice-guthrie/
...
So what does Daesh really mean? Well, D.A.E.SH is a transliteration of the Arabic acronym formed of the same words that make up I.S.I.S in English: 'Islamic State in Iraq and Syria', or 'لدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام' ('al-dowla al-islaamiyya fii-il-iraaq wa-ash-shaam'). Thats the full name chosen by the organisation, and when used in full its definitely how they want to be referred to. In Arabic, just like in English, that phrase consists of six words, four of which make it into the acronym (in and and are omitted) : 'دولة dowla' (state) + 'إسلامية islaamiyya' (Islamic) + 'عراق iraaq' (Iraq) + 'شام shaam'. That last word, 'shaam', is variously used in Arabic to denote Damascus (in Syrian dialect) Greater Syria / the Levant, or Syria hence the US-preferred acronym ISIL, with the L standing for Levant. In Arabic there is a single letter for the sound 'sh', hence our transliteration of the acronym having five letters, not four. And the vowel which begins the word 'islaamiyya' becomes an 'a' sound when differently positioned in a word, hence the acronym being pronounced 'daish' when written in Arabic, and the 'a' coming over into our transliteration of the acronym. Of course the amazing Arabic letter 'ع' which begins the word for 'Iraq' is unpronounceable to an anglophone, and cant be written in Latin letters, hence the use of an 'e' (or occasionally an e) in the transliteration.
Still with me? Nothing mysterious there or nothing that anyone who speaks Arabic wouldnt be able to explain. Its not a previously existing word in its own right. It does indeed now mean tyrannical, despotic, murdering fundamentalists who claim to be Islamic and claim to be a state but only as a result of how it sounds (more on that in a minute) and as a result of the associations that quickly attach to a neologism, in the same way that they have attached to the word ISIS. So its not based on any previous or mysterious, or quasi-mystical Eastern meaning.
And so if the word is basically 'ISIS', but in Arabic, why are the people it describes in such a fury about it? Because they hear it, quite rightly, as a challenge to their legitimacy: a dismissal of their aspirations to define Islamic practice, to be 'a state for all Muslims and crucially as a refusal to acknowledge and address them as such. They want to be addressed as exactly what they claim to be, by people so in awe of them that they use the pompous, long and delusional name created by the group, not some funny-sounding made-up word. And here is the very simple key point that has been overlooked in all the anglophone press coverage Ive seen: in Arabic, acronyms are not anything like as widely used as they are in English, and so arabophones are not as used to hearing them as anglophones are. Thus, the creation and use of a title that stands out as a nonsense neologism for an organisation like this one is inherently funny, disrespectful, and ultimately threatening of the organisations status.
There is much more at the link.
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Is this a form of disrespect for President Obama or what.
I would use Daesh when I can spell it but I can always write ISIL.
CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)"Al-Sham" has several possible meanings: Damascus / Syria / The Levant.
That's why some people call it "ISIL", so they don't have to explain that the second "S" stands for "Al-Sham" and go through the meanings.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)murpheeslaw
(110 posts)Sorry,I cannot make the link work all the way out to " TV_series)"
Although it looks like they are changing the name of the spy organization this coming season because of those @$$holes.
I will try and use Daesh just to be an annoyance (pronounced as spelled up the thread?), I know how Democ-RAT grates on me when it should be Democrat-IC.