(electronic chime)
- For as long as Ra's al Ghul's name has been spoken,
there has been a debate on how it ought to be pronounced.
Linguists say one thing, writers say another;
and fans have been caught in the crossfire.
- Ray-sh. - Razz-al-gool.
- Ray-sh al-gool. - Raaz-al-gool.
- Am I pronouncing this right?
Mister Razz Al Goo?
- Ray-sh, not Razz. A common mistake.
- So which is it?
(thudding) (scribbling)
Ra's materialized as a character
at a time of transition in comics.
Many writers and artists had then
considered their work to be fairly disposable.
His own co-creator, Dennis O'Neil,
stated in a 2014 interview,
"The conventional wisdom was that a comic book
"has a life of about three months.
"It was junk!
"It was birdcage lining."
Their readership was understood to become
completely new every three years or so,
which meant that he and his peers
found themselves able to get away with
recycling many of the same villains
without much thought to any grand design.
It wasn't until he and Ra's' co-creator, Neal Adams,
witnessed the rising popularity
of the Green Lantern-Green Arrow series in the early 1970's
that they decided it was time to invent a new Batman villain
to double down on the medium's potential
and see where it takes them,
because "We're either going to go to clowns again,
"or we need a new character."
Obviously, with a role intended to be
fairly substantial in the lore,
he needed to have a substantial name;
and for that, O'Neal and Adams took the suggestion
of their trusted working partner and editor
Julius Schwartz, better known as Julie.
According to an interview with O'Neal,
Julie came up to him with a name
meaning 'head of the demon' in Arabic,
which would also then become one of the titles
of the character in the comics:
The Demon's Head, Ra's al Ghul.
Adams elaborates on the story in another interview,
recounting a conversation with Julie.
"You know how Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty?
"We need a Professor Moriarty.
"We need a really good villain
"who is as smart as Batman,
"and as capable as Batman."
And so Ra's al Ghul is born:
an essentially immortal genius
with immeasurable wealth,
leader of the League Of Assassins.
He would become one of Batman's greatest
and most respected adversaries.
Good to go!
Wrap 'em up with a bow.
Donzo.
Simple.
So why all the intensity around this character?
Well, it turns out that we comic book fans
can be a pretty opinionated bunch,
and some early confusion over his name's pronunciation
has divided the masses.
Put simply, the contention around it is over
whether or not a name ever gains its own autonomy,
separate from external forces like...
Language.
Because the words Ra's, Al, and Ghul
are actually part of the Arabic language,
there's really only one correct way to pronounce them.
Julie created the name by combining Ra's, meaning 'head;'
Al, meaning 'the' or 'of the;'
and Ghul, meaning... ghoul, or demon.
And so, this is where the Ra's pronunciation camp stands,
because that is the one correct way
to say these words in Arabic,
and his name is originally meant to be Arabic.
On top of that, it's also interesting to note that,
for many, many years, Ra's' name was written
with a macron over the A and the U.
This macron exists in the Arabic form of the word,
and instructs readers to stress the long vowel sound.
And so, ra-az al ghu-ul.
It's quite telling, then, that these macrons
were eventually removed from the publication.
Maybe when they realized it didn't match
their preferred pronunciation, they removed them.
Like some sort of ret-con?
Who knows.
Now with all this in mind, one has to wonder,
where did the idea that it was pronounced
any other way come from?
Well, it turns out, there are a few places;
but mainly the mind of O'Neal himself,
and the word of some UCLA professors.
When asked how he felt about all the hubbub
over the name, he recounts a story of his daughter
seeking the input of her university professors.
It seems, according to them,
that it ought to be pronounced ray-sh.
Now, knowing what we just learned
about the Arabic inspiration,
this story would seem a bit suspect;
until you consider the close similarity ra's
has to a Hebrew word, also meaning 'head:' rosh,
and also how likely it is that the writers
had a greater familiarity with the Hebrew language
than they did Arabic.
But how does rosh get to ray-sh?
Well, the 20th letter of the Hebrew alphabet,
resh, is pronounced this way.
It looks like this, and is a Hebrew cognate
of the Arabic letter ra.
Resh is connected to the word rosh
not only because rosh starts with a resh;
but also, the letter resh is meant
to physically represent a bowed head.
It seems then that the Arabic word ra's
was substituted for the more familiar
and easier to pronounce Hebrew form,
because the Arabic word reminded them of it.
Finally, contributing even further to the confusion is the
often-varying pronunciation of the name in non-comic media.
Historically, movies, TV shows, and video games
have all been inconsistent from one to the other.
Or even in the same show,
in the case of the CW's Arrow series.
Christopher Nolan's film has it as ra-az,
Batman: The Animated Series and the Arkham games
have it as ray-sh.
Agh, it's... so, yeah.
There really isn't a 100% correct answer.
It's simply a matter of which set of reasoning
each person chooses for themselves.
Personally, I prefer ra-az, but what do you say?
Ra-az, or ray-sh?
Do you see Ra's Al-Ghul as words in a language
that lose their meaning when mispronounced,
or do you see it as a name that ought to be pronounced
in whatever way the named prefers?
Additionally, is there a specific game, show,
or movie continuity that swings you one way or the other?
I'm particularly interested in this last one.
Let us know in the comments down below.
P.S., I know.
I'm not Scott.
Guys.
I've been doing this show for a year now!
Come on!
Anyway, I really like this episode,
and I'm super happy with how it turned out.
If you'd like to watch other episodes of this show,
take a look at this playlist
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click on this link here to check it out.
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