> A tiny little measure of how the dominance of 'the West' forces
> everyone into an academic naming convention that does violence to
> their own names and cultures. No, I have no hope that this is about to
> change, nor is it especially shattering.
Whether this is due to the "dominance of the West" or not is not very clear. For example, when transliterating their names into the Roman alphabet, Japanese people generally put the family name second (the opposite of the practice in Japanese), while Chinese and Koreans generally (not always) keep the family name first. If the omnipotence of the West were involved, one would think that the West would force every country to use the same practice.
Of course, there is also a lot of confusion in how English speakers deal with Spanish-language names, and here it is an internal matter within the West.
I am almost completely ignorant of Arabic, but I know that we English speakers get terribly confused by the practice of Arabic speakers to use a whole handful of names, plus nicknames and other references, in ways that are not immediately clear to us. I would say that all of these problem are more linguistic than political. (But perhaps the linguistic, as well as the personal, is political.)
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)