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HelpRe: More cultural appropriation?
in reply to a message by Anneza
I am not sure I would call this "cultural appropriation."
However, it has always seemed a bit discriminatory to me that English speakers usually translated the names of Native Americans into what the name meant in English, so famous Native Americans end up being called names like Sitting Bull. The great majority of Chinese names -- and, until recently, I believe also Japanese names -- are also created from normal words in the language and have an obvious meaning to people who know how to interpret the characters they are written in. But English speakers almost never use an English translation as the name they call a Chinese person, except occasionally when a Chinese woman has a name which translates into the name of a flower such as Peony. I think this custom almost deliberately made Native Americans seem less "civilized" to English speakers and contributed to the denigration of Native cultures. I think it would be much better if we called Sitting Bull "Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake", his name in his own language (which by the way really translates as "Bison Who Sits" instead of "Sitting Bull"). even though we couldn't pronounce it completely accurately with our accents.
However, it has always seemed a bit discriminatory to me that English speakers usually translated the names of Native Americans into what the name meant in English, so famous Native Americans end up being called names like Sitting Bull. The great majority of Chinese names -- and, until recently, I believe also Japanese names -- are also created from normal words in the language and have an obvious meaning to people who know how to interpret the characters they are written in. But English speakers almost never use an English translation as the name they call a Chinese person, except occasionally when a Chinese woman has a name which translates into the name of a flower such as Peony. I think this custom almost deliberately made Native Americans seem less "civilized" to English speakers and contributed to the denigration of Native cultures. I think it would be much better if we called Sitting Bull "Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake", his name in his own language (which by the way really translates as "Bison Who Sits" instead of "Sitting Bull"). even though we couldn't pronounce it completely accurately with our accents.
This message was edited 6/27/2023, 4:56 PM
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