Caano Geel Posted May 26, 2003 Ok, all of us have lost our names because people in europe cant pronounce them, i.e. i am maxamad, but nobody can pronounce it so i become mohamed, its a different name all together. and its not just names, places, countries, everything and its not just somalis {yes somalis not somalians see the topic} its every non european culture, How many europeans do you see changing their names co's the somali/arabs/africans/indian/chinese cant pronounce them, you never see Peter, become betar because a nomand cant quite get the 'p' or the 'th' sound and dont even think about changing a places name to make it more pronouncable/phonetic for the above lot, you'd be desecrating its history. so the question is simple are we selling our selves out? have we taken on our new cultural slave names? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coloow Posted May 26, 2003 Caano-geel: I think the answer lies in the arabic names somalis use. Most of these arabic names like Cali, Maxamed, ahmed, etc are names that are known to westerners- and their equivalent names are ali, mohamed, ahmed. etc. But I agree with you, the turks, the bosnians and the people's of the former soviet union use their arabic names with a touch of their own heritage like mohamadovic, aliyevic, ahmet etc. So I don't see a reason why we should not do it. As a matter of fact I still use my somali name- but when my non somali friends prounouce it it souunds like an alien name! I have got used to that now and ironically I might not respond if a somali utters my name in the somali manner! In your case for instance, if you keep caanogeel (pronounced by many europeans as KAANO-geel, that would sound like the italian word cano (dog)! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
