Translation errors?

[DancingBear]

On CNN just now was a woman (sorry, did not write down her name) who is an Arabic translator, and was speaking re: the transcript of the Berg audio. Here are two very salient points she made:

1) The U.S. translation puts the phrase "al-queda" in. She was ADAMANT that the phrase was NOT "al-queda", but a similar sounding Arabic phrase which means (when translated) "one who sits and does nothing." Therefore, there was NO mention of al- queda by anyone speaking on that video.

2) After careful listening, her and her team are sure that the person speaking (said by the U.S. to be a Jordanian representative of al-queda) was NOT, as the accent he had was not Jordanian.

Watch these points die by nightfall.

All those who believe anything this government tells you, please buy this bridge.

[lovedems]

1. We saw that too.

That is pretty big if you ask me. No, it is very big.

[BattyDem]

2. So once again ...

the US in putting Al Qaida where there is no Al Qaida. :eyes: :mad:

[bossfish]

4. aaaargh...

Can't ANY news stay away from the war spin machine?

Why is lying the first instinct of these crooks?

[spanone]

7. Once the lie get so big, it takes on it's own life. Lying liars etc......

[AntiCoup2K4]

18. Maybe there's no Al Qaeda, period.

Yeah, there's an Osama Bin Laden. And there are certainly some terrorist groups scatterred all over the globe. But this allegedly massive organization which came into existence conveniently for PNAC's timing....

..... Just a little bit suspicious.

[Bluebear]

3. Olivia Nasser?

I think that was her name, I saw it too and thought it an enormous point. The official CIA version has "Al qaeda cannot stand by and do nothing" and she said it was very plain to any Arabic speaker that the word was indeed "al kai" (sp?), one who sits and does nothing.

[DancingBear]

15. Yes, that was her name

Your statement of what was said vs. what the * machine WANTED said is correct - thanks for flushing it out.

Keep this kicked - this is very important in lieu of what Hannity and the rest of Nitwits Inc. say on their respective shows.

I guarantee they'll use the "official" U.S. version.

[damnraddem]

5. They didn't say they were 'Al Qaida.'

They said they represented the Al Capone Mob Liberation League. They execute any contractor who wants to 'take out a contract' in Halliburton territory.

[ElementaryPenguin]

6. Holy shit! Really starting to sound like Black Ops - BFEE!!

Couldn't put ANYTHING past these desperate BFEE/PNAC Mob monsters at this point!

:puke:

[City Lights]

8. MSNBC said yesterday that the speaker had an Egyptian accent.

The analyst they had on said the accent was Egyptian, that the speaker used bad grammar and that he was probably illiterate.

[w13rd0]

17. He read pretty fast for an illiterate guy...

...especially considering he was flipping pages all over in the process. That and that we couldn't see his mouth move, and the audio was badly desynched...

[City Lights]

20. I'm only repeating what I heard on T.V.

I don't necessarily agree with it.

If "bad grammar" makes one illiterate, what does that say about our dear shrub?

[Straight Shooter]

27. Why did he have to read anything? He should know it by heart

This is a major propaganda event for so-called al-Qaeda, and yet somehow we're to believe that the people responsible for this execution of Nick Berg aren't capable of simply standing there and giving an extemporaneous oratory of the reasons for what they're doing? We're supposed to be conned into thinking that these "true believers" need to read their grievances?

Hell, I could stand up before any video camera and go on for half an hour about any cause in which I believe. Don't need any flippin' pages to do it, either. But I most definitely would need to read a script if what I've been told to say isn't in my native language.

What a crock of absolute bull. I feel so sorry for Nick Berg and his family, victims twice-over.

[w13rd0]

28. You made me think of something...

...without those pages he looked like he was looking down at, we wouldn't have known anything was being said. If he hadn't had those pages to fidget with and turn over and over, we would have thought they filmed 5 minutes of them all just standing around behind that guy in orange. We certainly couldn't read his lips...

[robbedvoter]

9. This qualifies as LBN: Al Quaeda not involved in berg case

Whatever the whole truth is, this is important enough.

[tkulesa]

10. This is important.

Kick.

[bloom]

11. kick

:kick:

[Fridays Child]

12. Questions: Where and when was his body found? Is the US saying...

...how long he'd been dead when they found him?

Did the translator agree that the person speaking indicated that the beheading was in retaliation for torturing Iraqi prisoners?

Did the speaker say anything about Nick Berg being Jewish?

What is the name of the web site that originally posted the video?

[robbedvoter]

14. His parents knew of it since the weekend (penn live article)

Somehow, it became public news as the new batch of torture pics surfaced.

[remfan]

24. Body found

sometime over last weekend (Saturday?) - on an overpass in Baghdad. I'm fairly certain there's a thread in LBN on it, Mary Pat.

[Walt Starr]

13. Excuse me while I adjust my tinfoil hat

and knock the mud off that was slung at me yesterday for having the audacity to suggest that the murderers being Al Queda was as much a conspiracy theory as suggesting they were CIA operatives.

[Walt Starr]

16. kick

:kick:

[TeeYiYi]

19. kick

TYY :kick:

[Walt Starr]

21. What, no replies from the Al Queda Conspiracy Theorists?

I would have thought they'd be all over this thread.

/sarcasm

[Scoopie]

22. My Arabic is a little rusty

so I can't pass comment on the al-Qaeda reference; however, as the ex-wife of a Jordanian who has family out the wazoo in Jordan (and throughout the Middle East), I CAN state, unequivically, that the accent is NOT Jordanian. In fact, the accent is unlike any natural dialect I've heard.
That doesn't mean it isn't a real Middle Eastern accent, it just means that it's NOT Jordanian, Bahrainian, Syrian or Lebanese.
Those accents, I know.

[htuttle]

23. Could it be a Russian accent?

On a couple Russian forums I visit, some people said that it sounded like he had a Russian accent, and actually said 'Do it faster' in Russian at one point ("Davay pozhivee!").

That could suggest Chechens, maybe?

[RoyGBiv]

32. Possibly...

I saw that suggestion somewhere else, probably in one of the "they were white guys" threads.

Definitely plausible.

[southlandshari]

30. My Arabic is still good, and I agree with Scoopie

As the wife of a Palestinian who has lived and traveled extensively in the Middle East, I am certain that the speaker on the Berg video is not a native speaker of Arabic from any of the countries Scoopie mentions (and add Palestine to that list).

I am undecided as to who I think is actually on the video, but the speaker sounds to me like he is speaking classical Arabic, learned in a classroom as opposed to picked up through immersion in an Arabic speaking community. The difference is very clear to me as someone who has learned in both settings. The speaker is definitely fluent in Arabic, it just sounds very stilted. Didn't sound Egyptian to me, either.

[RafterMan]

33. From the rhythm

I thought he was trying to do a qoranic-style thing.

I heard someone say that's the effect Osama shoots for (no, I'm not suggesting it's him), but I've never listened to an Osama tape.

[southlandshari]

34. Speech cadence

That was actually one of the first impressions I had - the only problem is he would slip in and out of the recitation style of speech used when reading Qu'ran. That certainly isn't conclusive proof that the tape is a fraud, just an observation. This whole thing is just so screwy. My husband has agreed to at least watch the first part of the video (that's all I made it through) and give his observations if anyone has a current link.

Any help?

[eridani]

25. Linky, linky?

Need transcript ASAP. Anyone who has it, please post.

[Must_B_Free]

26. Can anyone explain why

every Berg thread that questioned the official story had a mound of ridiculers mob on to it last night, but it seems none today? Are they all off duty now?

[w13rd0]

29. For the same reason...

...you'll see this only menioned in passing from now on...

Bergs parents are against the war, strongly. And the "facts" just don't add up. Wouldn't be wise for the Bushbots to draw attention to it.

[bolokshi]

31. the government...

is lying so much that they are even lying that thay are lying.


:7

[helderheid]

35. what program on CNN?

Any chance you know what program on CNN? They keep transcripts - this is something each one of us should write a letter to the editor about.

[DancingBear]

36. It was in the 1:00 hour of CNN -Wednesday

I believe the anchor might have been Miles O'Brien (sp?), although I don't recall exactly.

Definitely a male anchor, though.

[helderheid]

37. CNN transcript

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/12/lol.02.html

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SR. EDITOR FOR ARAB AFFAIRS: No. Arab viewers of the big networks, as well as the local TV stations did not see the actual execution. They did see at the beginning of this tape, just like we saw here on CNN and most Western networks, you saw the beginning of the tape right before the beheading. They reported on it, and as a side story. It certainly isn't playing as a big story or as the story.

O'BRIEN: That's very interesting. When we hearken back to Danny Pearl, "The Wall Street Journal" reporter who was killed in Pakistan in 2002, the entirety of that, which included a beheading, was shown on these outlets. What happened? What changed?

NASR: What changed is the learning. And also the reaction to showing gruesome pictures and atrocities and the reaction from viewers and authorities alike. Also, it has been a few years since then. Back then, there was no Al-Arabiya. Al-Arabiya is brand new. It started a few weeks before the war last year.

Again, it's a learning process. It seems that the networks are responding to their viewers. Remember, Al Jazeera is seen all over the world, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, all over the world. And viewers there are not accepting of these images as people in the Arab world are.

O'BRIEN: Well, let me ask you this. You've had a chance to really listen to this tape and get a sense who might be responsible, just by deciphering, say, accents. And certainly, there in the Arab world, they're very attuned to that. And given the fact of who this may or may not be, does that have some effect on how it is being played?

NASR: Yes, and if you listen to these voices that we're hearing on Arab networks, Iraqis are condemning this execution. And they're saying these are foreigners. These are not Iraqis. They do not represent us and so forth.

Now, of course, the original claim was that Zarqawi is the actual man who performed this execution. Our experts listened to the accent, as you said, and they determined the accent is not Jordanian...

O'BRIEN: He is a Jordanian who is working supposedly, allegedly, at the behest of al Qaeda in Iraq. So go ahead.

NASR: Right, he is very close to bin Laden, and works, you're right, as an agent of al Qaeda in Iraq. Now, the accent is not Jordanian so that takes the Jordanian element out of the story immediately.

O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, now one final thought here. You did a very careful translation of your own, of the statement. And in it, you see no reference to al Qaeda. And yet the official U.S. government translation does. Explain how that happened.

NASR: Oh, I find it very interesting, because out of the blue, there is a mention of al Qaeda on the U.S. government translation. It says: "Does al Qaeda need any further excuses?" Any speaker of the Arabic language is going to notice a difference between the word al Qaeda, which means "the base," and al qaed, which means "the one sitting, doing nothing."

My translation says: "Is there any excuse for the one who sits down and does nothing?" Basically they're telling people, you have no excuse for not doing anything, for not acting and defending Islam and so forth. Whereas the U.S. government translation has this factual error, I'm sure it's an honest mistake, but basically it sort of adds al Qaeda to the statement, which is not on the statement.

O'BRIEN: All right, Octavia Nasr, we don't know exactly how that got in there. We'll try to get more on that. We appreciate you bringing that all to light and appreciate your insights, of course.

NASR: You bet.

O'BRIEN: Kyra.

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