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On the related topic of Arabic names, I currently visiting Tunisia. The other day I asked one of my friends how to spell her name using Latin letters, and she
by devoutsalsa 4y ago
On the related topic of Arabic names, I currently visiting Tunisia. The other day I asked one of my friends how to spell her name using Latin letters, and she said “you can use one C, two Cs, one K, it doesn’t matter.” Now I’m wondering how many people have problems because their names have been casually spelled a few different ways and linked to someone else’s name in accident.
- ghostDancer 4y agoIt has already happened https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#False_positives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List#False_positives
- moloch-hai 4y agoThe US doesn't care: if your name seems to match a terrorist's, you are that terrorist.
- master_crab 4y agoThis is a problem with all transliterated languages. It’s worse for Arabs because until modern times they didn’t have “conventional” surnames. Their name was a composition of a given name plus that of their forefathers’, often appended with “Abu” (meaning father in Arabic), and sometimes the addition of a clan name. In my ancestral home of Egypt, the government often standardized everyone about 100-150 years ago with whatever names they were carrying at the time. So you could be completely unrelated to someone and have a partially matching last name. Combine that with America’s gleefully racist views of Arabs - particularly after 9/11 - and you have a recipe for disaster with no-fly lists.