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#8 -- Farsi has that ch letter. I think maybe they use it in Iraqi Arabic also. I don't know how else Adnan Pachachi
and Ahmad Chalabi would write their family names.

I've seen it used in Libya (once) in the family hame Bigo, where it indicated the hard g.

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11

Vinny, I think on the rare occasion that Arabs borrowed Farsi or Turkish words (Pachachi and Chalabi must both be from Turkish), I think they wrote them with their base form only - that is to say with single rather than triple points.

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12

OK, thanks, boxxla.

#8 is right about the b and makes me think that maybe it's not one word. Maybe it's supposed to be an Arabic transliteration of English "China B" whatever that would mean. (Someone started to write the name of the 80s TV program China Beach and was interrupted?) Does that make any more sense in context, owenrubia?

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13

Perhaps the OP exaggerated the space between the alif and the ba, assuming that a space means a new word. "Chin-ab" ... "River of China"??

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14

Three-pointed jiim is certainly used in Syria for writing Iraqi family names. I read china b, not that that helps much.

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15

I have to correct my proposal about someone being interrupted while starting to transliterate "China Beach". The b is in isolate form, not initial form as it would be if were intended as the first letter of a trasliteration of beach.

Whatever happened to OP? We need context!

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