Did you know that? The guy who “discovered”* the Americas was actually called Cristoforo Colombo! Since he was ITALIAN he had an ITALIAN name!
*(after the Arawaks/ Taìnos/ Algonquins/ other native groups and Vikings, that is)
This is an example of anglicisation, the English habit of altering foreign names or words to sound more English, or at least European. To a degree everyone does it, but English people seem to take it to a whole new level of disrespect. Sometimes the anglicised forms don’t even resemble the original.
(On a slight tangent, this is why I refused to let anyone shorten my name in school. I’ve even had one boy directly say he didn’t like my name – see how racists operate? Can’t even gather enough brainpower to repeat what they hear)
Other examples:
Ibn Sina – Avicenna
Ibn Rushd – Averroes (the fuck?!?)
Yeshua/ Yehoshua – Jesus
Muslim – Moslem/ Mohammedan
Zarathushtra – Zoroaster
Jinn – Genie
Kurush/ Kurosh – Cyrus the great
Salahuddin (pronounced sa-laa-hud-deen) – Saladin
Mikael (pronounced mi-ka-el) – Michael (pronounced my-kerl)
David (pronounced da-veed) – David (pronounced day-vid)
Yochanan/ Yochanna – John
Azania – South Africa
Jabal-Tariq – Gibraltar
Mikołaj Kopernik – Nicholas Copernicus (did you know he was Polish?)
Piyush Jindal – Bobby (WTMFH?!?)
Leo Africanus (admittedly not English but European nonetheless) – Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan!!!
People need to stop that shit, especially Africans. Simple mispronunciations are understandable, but if someone tries to shorten or rename you without your approval, don’t allow it. And don’t do it for them just to fit in or make it easier for them either, make them learn to adapt to you exactly as they like to make you do.
One Tawny Stranger 