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Changing people’s names | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Buoltel Newbie Joined 5327 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 1 of 10 25 April 2010 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
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Long-time president of the IOC Juan Antonio Samaranch passed away recently, so I went to see what the Wikipedia writes about him. I was flipping through articles in different languages and noticed that for some reason in the Catalan Wikipedia he's called "Joan Antoni Samaranch".
First, I thought that this might be some sort of vandalism, but apparently it's not. Google gives almost 20.000 hits for 'site:.cat "Joan Antoni Samaranch"'. Then, I tried to find out if there are other examples of this sort of thing, and it turns out that at least the F1 driver Jaime Alguersuari is known as "Jaume Alguersuari" in Catalan. The little I know of the politics in the part of Spain where Catalan is spoken, I guess this might be some sort of a weird political statement by the separatists, but who knows. Can someone inform me what's going on here? Is this type of thing common? Can you point out examples? Also, it would be interesting to know if this sort of thing is happening with other languages. Royalty and popes excluded obviously. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5765 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 2 of 10 26 April 2010 at 1:15am | IP Logged |
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In his native Barcelona, it's quite probable that anybody called Juan in Spanish will be called Joan in Catalan, be they Catalan or not. Moreover, it's done vice versa.
Different Romance languages are like dialects to each other, and it's reasonable to adapt proper names in a cross-dialect situation. Edited by minus273 on 26 April 2010 at 1:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5339 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 10 26 April 2010 at 1:54am | IP Logged |
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I believe this is common between Spanish-Portuguese-Catalan-Galician, often the names changes in each.
Would be interesting if the "Separatists" (more like Catalan Nationalists) changed names. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Buoltel Newbie Joined 5327 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes | Message 4 of 10 26 April 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged |
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I've tried to do a little digging, and this doesn't seem like a norm. At least in the written language. So there must be some sort of logic or conditions where this happens. What are they?
For example, if there were two friends from Barcelona, Joan and Juan. Would Joan call Juan Joan and Juan Joan Juan? Sounds insane, but that's what minus273's post seems to indicate. Or if, say, Juan, age nine, from Barcelona, goes to his classes at school, would the teacher address to him as Joan? Doesn't sound very believable either. Also, how does the use of this practice differ between the common folk, the authorities and the media? Would be cool to get a spaniard to answer these. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 10 26 April 2010 at 9:17pm | IP Logged |
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I think it's less and less common to translate Catalan names into Castilian and vice versa.
Under Franco's rule the authorities always used Castilian names in official documents, but that's now a long time ago. So, what's their real name? Joan Antoni Samaranch i Torelló or Juan Antonio Samaranch Torelló? Josep Maria Carreras i Coll or José María Carreras Coll? Maybe one has to ask their families to find out. The names of royalties are still often translated. Prince Charles is el príncipe Carlos in Spanish and el príncep Carles in Catalan. Edited by tractor on 26 April 2010 at 9:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6312 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 10 27 April 2010 at 9:36am | IP Logged |
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Wasn't this the usual practice across Europe up till the 19th century?
Giacomo Casanova called himself Jacques Casanova or the chevalier of Seingalt outside Italy, he even had a German name I think, which i can't recall at the moment, probably Jakob. Mozart signed under the name Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart in German-speaking areas/to German-speakers, Wolfgang Amadè in French company, Wolfgango Amadeo to the Itaians. Forms of the Germanic name "Hludwig" like Ludwig, Lodewijk, Louis, Ludovicus, Clovis have been used throughout European history interchangeably depending on the document in question. I've seen Michelangelo "translated" to English in the form "Michael Angel" in many books dating up to the early 20th century. Edited by quendidil on 27 April 2010 at 9:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 10 27 April 2010 at 9:30pm | IP Logged |
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The practice certainly was common in days gone by, and the Bible is the single best document of this -- the biggest differences are between the Latin and Greek names and the Hebrew/Aramaic originals, but even in later translations to other language there is a fair degree of variance. Of course, the Greeks and Romans had to translate names because of the case system. Has Russian stopped doing this yet?
Anyway, there's a similar situation in Irish and Gaelic speaking communities as in modern Catalunia, and it seems to be for the same reason -- just as Franco insisted that all birth certificates and other ID had Castillian names, the British government insisted that all births were registered with English names. This led to the situation where everyone had an "official" name and a "normal" name, and is a continuing norm. Even in the case of people born into monolingual English-speaking families, the line seems to be that society has been artificially Anglicised and renaming people back to Gaelic forms is fair game. The other thing with Catalan vs Castillian is that the differences are consistent across the language, so it's almost just a question of accent. Are there any Catalan words ending -io? If not, then it's not possible to say Antonio in a Catalan accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5448 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 8 of 10 28 April 2010 at 2:37am | IP Logged |
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Changing names to fit the case system also seems to be done very often in Lithuanian.
George W. Bush - Džordžas Volkeris Bušas Bill Gates - Bilas Geitsas Kim Jong Il - Kim Čen Iras Some names, like Barack Obama, are left intact because "Obama" can be declined without having to change the name. Which is not a bad thing at all, it's better than having to artificially make up a whole declension class that accommodates non-Lithuanian names. Edited by chucknorrisman on 28 April 2010 at 2:40am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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