Laura Jean Zito • Magnetic Sinai
ARABIC SPELLING
In Arabic spelling, each word is composed of three consonants,
and each dialect pronounces the unwritten vowels differently. An
experienced speaker can make out the word even though two
pronunciations may not sound the same. The spelling, therefore, is
arbitrary. Though you might find certain spellings on the internet,
they are not necessarily the “correct” spellings. They are spellings
that search engines might have recirculated more times than others,
making them seem “more popular.” El Areesh might well also be
written as Al Arish while Sharem is the same as Sharm-el-Sheikh,
though people say “Sharem” when abbreviating to the shorter
version. This is the same with the town of Nueba, which is often
spelled Nuweiba among other variations. Much of this is due to the
fact that as the tourist industry developed, many non-English speaking
people became involved with writing signs and simply chose to spell
place names phonetically, resulting in a wide variation of different
spellings for different places. But that is part of the charm, all the
oddly spelled handwritten signs!
Nueba Musseina is the designation given to that part of Nueba where
the Musseina tribe are congregated – it is their village. Nueba is a
very spread out town, with pockets of habitation sprinkled along a
fifteen kilometre coast. Coming from Eilat, one arrives first at Bir Swer,
then at Ras Shattayn, followed by Nueba Tarrabin, Nueba Medina,
Nueba Duna, Nueba Port and finally Nueba Musseina. Nueba Medina
(city) is where one can find the hospital, the bank, the internet café ,
the telephone services etc. Nueba Port is for getting a ferry to Jordan
or buying cheap goods that the traders bring over from Jordan on
the ferries. Bir Swer and Ras Shattayn have several individual resorts,
called “camps.” Each camp is run by an individual Bedouin or Egyptian
owner.
Musseina and Tarrabin are the names of the tribes, but they are also
the names used to designate locales, especially in the specific areas
where those tribes live in the town of Nueba, which has both Tarrabin
and Musseina Bedouin. Tarrabin populate El Areesh, but are not found
in Dahab or farther south. There are many tribes in Sinai as a whole,
more than two dozen - the Aligat, the Jebeliya, the Huwaitat etc. You
will see that most of the tribes populate very specific areas in Sinai.