Shia vs. Shiite

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Bob Coles from Carlsbad, California.

Hiya, Bob. Welcome.

Hello, Bob. What’s going on?

Well, not much. There’s always a lot of news about the Middle East going on, and I keep hearing the words Shia and Shiite, and I can’t find a pattern to them. I’m not sure when one should be used and when the other should be used. And I’ve looked it up in a couple of dictionaries, and the only thing I can get from the dictionaries is that it’s probably that the two words are interchangeable.

Right, almost, almost.

Did you find in there a definition of Shia?

Yes, in the OED it says, A, properly, and then in parentheses, but in English somewhat rarely, used as a collaborative name for that one of the two great Muslim sects. And then it goes on to find the two sects.

Yeah, let’s just write that up to unhelpful dictionary definitions.

Right, and the second one, the B, says, commonly an adherent of this sect, a Shiite.

Right, so simply put…

So it’s saying Shia is a Shiite.

Right, so it’s saying, simply put here, Shia is a branch of Islam, of the religion Islam, right?

Mm—

And it’s a noun. Shiite is an adjective to refer to things that are associated with that branch of Islam, right? And both Shia and Shiite are nouns that can refer to somebody who believes in the branch of Islam known as Shia. So there’s a little bit of overlap there.

The thing is that Shia isn’t ever an adjective, and Shiite is. Shia is a noun with multiple meanings. So it’s a little complicated, and it’s not helped by the fact that they’re very similar and they have similar etymological roots.

So they can pretty much be used as a noun interchangeably?

As a noun, yes. Although usually you’re not going to call the branch of Islam Shiite. You’re only going to call it Shia. That’s the proper way to say it. That’s S-H-I-A. Sometimes there’s a diacritic mark in there to indicate that there’s a glottal stop, but usually that’s left out in English.

So when Shiite functions as a noun, you’re talking about the person.

That’s right.

And when it’s functioning as an adjective, it describes that kind of person.

Right.

Or the sect.

Yeah.

We won’t go into the details of what that sect believes in. I mean, there’s tons of great stuff on the Internet about this. And actually, most dictionaries, I think, define at least the two sects of the religion pretty well.

I think I’ve got it. It doesn’t have anything to do with singular or plural either.

No, it doesn’t at all.

Okay.

Well, Bob, thanks. I think a lot of people have that question, so we appreciate your calling.

Good. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

I’ve got to tell you, Martha, you know, ever since the military actions after 2001, this kind of question had come up repeatedly, hasn’t it? People keep asking about this. This is, to me, in my mind, it’s directly connected to the interest that we have in learning about other people and other languages. It’s directly a part of that.

Definitely.

So if you have a question about other languages or this sort of thing, we’d love to hear about it. We’ll help straighten it out. The number of call is 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-929-WORD. Or send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.