sabina, in Arabic the base would be spelled al-Qa'idah. As one responder alluded: there is always a problem of spelling a word as opposed to pronouncing it in Arabic - - and definately Chinese! It's called romanization by using the Latin alphabet.

When the Arabs conquered a portion of Mediterranian Europe, they were able to rescue the Greek Classics and put them down into Latin for all of us to enjoy reading works from such as Homer and Plato,etc.

Coke tried picking words to phonetically mimic the sound of Coca Cola back in the 1920's in China. Spelled out alphebetically in Mandarin on signs though, it was "Bite the Wax Tadpole!

Confused even more? Me too. : - )