In reply to:
The t/d thing is not at all like l/r in Japanese. ... In fact, it's the opposite. With l/r, the Japanese cannot distinguish between two sounds in English - they only hear one.
We have a similar situation here, to whit, linguistically, Arabs (at least in this area) cannot distinguish between p/b and in fact, cannot make the 'p' sound at all, substituting the 'b' sound. So, instead of "police" we get "bolice" and so forth.
In fact, it is interesting how that changes words historically - for instance, in the north of Israel, we have a place called "Banias" - but at this place, you can see the remains of an ancient temple to the god Pan! Over the years, instead of Pan, the Arabs would say "Ban" and so the name of the place changed from "Panias" to "Banias" which is how it is now shown on ALL maps!
The same is true of the now-Arab city of Nablus (which was the Hebrew city of Shchem in ancient times, sometimes but incorrectly pronounced She-kem). Later, the name was changed to Neapolis (under the Roman occupation) and some time later when Arabs began to settle in the region (following the Muslim conquest in 638 CE and more under the Ottoman occupation and even more after the Jews began to return - from the mid-19th century and into the early 20th century), the city began to be called Nabolis... resulting in what we have today as Nablus!
In Hebrew, we have some letters that can be read as one sound or another, such as the bet & vet or pay & fay, BUT there are specific rules on when to use which sound. For instance, the real name of Hebron is Hevron (and it is a short 'e' as well and with the accent on the last syllable) as the 'vet' comes in the middle of the world rather than at the beginning (when it would most likely be pronounced with a 'b' sound).
Shoshannah
BTW - on transliterations - though there is somewhere an 'official' way to transliterate words from Hebrew & Arabic into English, here most people seem to prefer to do it in a way that is easiest for each person - thus, the street signs can be different from one block to the next or city to city or map to map!
Just one of the things that makes life here a bit more interesting than in some places!
