| Summary: | Language imperialism and political correctness
In the times of general globalization, in its part that considers languages, especially the so-called small languages, we can talk not only about an uncontrolled inroad of mainly English words into all walks of life within a society, but also about elements of linguistic imperialism.
That imperialism has come about through technology, not by arms and blazing swords, as was mostly the case in history. In addition, the USA – the exporting country of the above mentioned language-imperialistic phenomena around the world, is considered to be the cradle of the much advocated political correctness, which should include basic human rights, one of which is undoubtedly the right to a proper name.
It could be argued whether this right is always respected: I will show some examples of proper names of immigrants who had to/wanted to renounce their names in order to be Americanized (‘‘cooked in the American melting pot’’). Thus, the Croatian Krešo became Chris, Eva is spelled Eve on the other side of the pond (pronounced /I:v/), and in the global (American) news Michael Stich, a German, is pronounced /majkl stits/, and so on.
I will also provide an example of political correctness which is not far from sheer stupidity.
Political correctness itself changes with time, which will be illustrated by the Croatian example Ciganin – Rom (Gipsy – Roma(ny)).
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