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Is there a real difference between the words 'moslem' and 'muslim'. Should one be used in preference to the other. Is one American English and the other British English?
Question
#17995. Asked by Mother Goose. (Apr 06 02 9:56 AM)
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mk2norwich
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According to my reference books (Yes! Some people still use them) the answer is No. They are, as far as I can ascertain, just alternative spelling. Anybody know differently?
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Fosse4
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Oxford English Dictionary gives both spellings for the same definition
Under Muslim it refers you back to Moslem where the definition is given.
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Barrow boy
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It is difficult to have common English spellings of foreign words where either there is a non Latin alphabet or where there are vowel or consonant sounds which do not occur in English - Arabic tends to fall into both categories. We tend to settle for a spelling which we feel we can pronounce easily, and which looks reader friendly even this is not the precise phonetic equivalent of the foreign word.
For instance the former General Secretary of the USSR was often spelt Kruschev in the newspapers because the phonetic equivalent looked to daunting to the readers. Phonetically Q'ran is closer to what an Arab would understand than Koran, but in general we feel more comfortable with the latter spelling. I also notice that hadj has two alternative spellings.
So which do we use, Moslem or Muslim. I personally think that it is the visual attractiveness of the word which will ultimately prevail, not the phonetic correctness.
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bpykh
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bpykh says:
According to Dictionary.com muslim is the Arabic word and Moslem is a American variant of it.
 http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=moslem
Sat Apr 06 06:25:16 CST 2002 (Delete Entry)
(Moved from #17994 - Duplicate question - McG)
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