t sound of a in Arabic and other Oriental languages is that
of the English short U, as in "cuff." This sound, so easy to us, is
a great stumbling-block to other nations. I judge that Dutch
_koffie_ and kindred forms are imperfect attempts at the notation
of a vowel which the writers could not grasp. It is clear that the
French type is more correct. The Germans have corrected their
_koffee_, which they may have got from the Dutch, into _kaffee_.
The Scandinavian languages have adopted the French form. Many must
wonder how the _hv_ of the original so persistently becomes _ff_ in
the European equivalents. Sir James Murray makes no attempt to
solve this problem.

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, who also contributed to the _Notes and
Queries_ symposium, argued that the _hw_ of the Arabic _qahwah_ becomes
sometimes _ff_ and sometimes only _f_ or _v_ in European translations
because some languages, such as English, have strong syllabic accents
(stresses), while others, as French, have none. Again, he points out
that the surd aspirate _h_ is heard in some languages, but is hardly
audible in others. Most Europeans tend to leave it out altogether.

Col. W.F. Prideaux, another contributor, argued that the European
languages got one form of the word coffee directly from the Arabic
_qahwah_, and quoted from Hobson-Jobson in support of this:

_Chaoua_ in 1598, _Cahoa_ in 1610, _Cahue_ in 1615; while Sir
Thomas Herbert (1638) expressly states that "they drink (in Persia)
... above all the rest, _Coho_ or _Copha_: by Turk and Arab called
_Caphe_ and _Cahua_." Here the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic
pronunciations are clearly differentiated.

Col. Prideaux then calls, as a witness to the Anglo-Arabic
pronunciation, one whose evidence was not available when the _New
English Dictionary_ and Hobson-Jobson articles were written. This is
John Jourdain, a Dorsetshire seaman, whose _Diary_ was printed by the
Hakluyt Society in 1905. On May 28, 1609, he records that "in the
afternoone wee departed out of Hatch (Al-Hauta, the capital of the Lahej
district near Aden), and travelled untill three in the morninge, and
then wee rested in the plaine fields untill three the next daie, neere
unto a cohoo howse in the desert." On June 5 the party, traveling from
Hippa (Ibb), "laye in the mountaynes, our camells being wearie, and our
selves little better. This mountain is called Nasm