# What ever happened to "Moslem?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 19, 2016, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354 "2016-07-19T20:38:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![NeonMadman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58f4c7/32.png) [@NeonMadman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeonMadman)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/41 "2016-07-20T21:40:44Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Hyperbole, maybe you’ve heard of it? Of course I have. Trillions of times. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/42 "2016-07-20T21:46:25Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > It’s a shame to throw a spanner in this–mentioning “Auschwitz” has a way of bringing down banter Auschwitz is another example of all this. The city is usually spelled Oświęcim nowadays, even in German. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/43 "2016-07-20T22:37:04Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > South American ones only? Where do you think Sporting de Gijón or Athletic de Bilbao got theirs? Those two aren’t even anglicized, they’re a mixture of English and Spanish. I didn’t know about those. A.C. Milan and Juventus were two other British formed clubs. It was British railway workers that, at about the same time as soccer had formalised its rules in the 1860’s that took the game around the world as they were (at the time) the world leaders in the railway industry. I probably associate it more with more with South American teams, particularly Argentinian ones: River Plate, Newell’s Old Boys, Racing Club, and the lesser known [Douglas Haig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_Atl%C3%A9tico_Douglas_Haig). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/44 "2016-07-20T22:46:07Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Nitpick: English often uses the _French_ names for foreign (but non-French) places. Florence is one example, but you can add Rome, Naples and lots of other places. > > As for English-speakers “acceding to pressure” to change the names they use, what’s mostly happening is that English speakers substitute new transliterations which more accurately reflect the name. “Peking” was so called because the English - true to form - adopted a variant of the name given by the French to that city, but pronounced the French word as it if were a native English word. Unsurprisingly, “Peking” sounds nothing like the name it is supposed to be a transliteration of, and Chinese speakers struggling either to speak English or to underastand it were simply baffled by it. > > Of course the English can refer to Peking by any name they like. But if they wish to be understood in some of the contexts where they are likely to be talking about Peking, there is merit in referring to it by a name that sounds at least vaguely like the name used by the inhabitants. “Beijing” makes no sense if you want English speakers to pronounce it as close to the Chinese pronunciation as possible. We should be spelling it as “Peiching.” ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/45 "2016-07-20T23:21:59Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “Beijing” makes no sense if you want English speakers to pronounce it as close to the Chinese pronunciation as possible. We should be spelling it as “Peiching.” One thing I never could grok was the “q” situation, i.e. why, how and wherefor any Westerner could think “Hmm, that “tch/tj” sound doesn’t really have an equivalent in my language, how should I write it down… I know ! Q ! Perfect” To this day it sticks in pinyin (the official way to write Chinese using Roman characters) and it’s annoying because speakers who don’t speak Chinese nor know that about pinyin invariably pronounce those errant Qs as hard Ks. So you always hear about the “King” dynasty… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/46 "2016-07-20T23:35:01Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > One thing I never could grok was the “q” situation, i.e. why, how and wherefor any Westerner could think “Hmm, that “tch/tj” sound doesn’t really have an equivalent in my language, how should I write it down… I know ! Q ! Perfect” > > To this day it sticks in pinyin (the official way to write Chinese using Roman characters) and it’s annoying because speakers who don’t speak Chinese nor know that about pinyin invariably pronounce those errant Qs as hard Ks. So you always hear about the “King” dynasty… Well, I think that reflects on the same point I was making. Pinyin is for native speakers of Chinese, not for native speakers of English. It was a mistake to adopt Pinyin as the standard for Chinese words in English. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/47 "2016-07-20T23:52:05Z")
> [@NeonMadman](#): > > Of course I have. Trillions of times. Really? _Trillions_ of times. Huh, I had no idea. I mean, I hear it now and then, but . . . _trillions_? Seriously? Maybe it’s the company you keep? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/48 "2016-07-21T00:19:12Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > Auschwitz is another example of all this. The city is usually spelled Oświęcim nowadays, even in German. In Yiddish, the city is Oświęcim, but the concentration camp is Auschwitz. I think that at the time of the second WW, Jews from Poland actually referred to the camp as Oświęcim, unless they were speaking German to their captors, but convention has led to the camp being universally called by its German name, “Auschwitz.” A lot of Americans I know pronounce it OSH-wits. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/49 "2016-07-21T00:28:24Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Now then: are there parts of the Arabic-speaking world where the vowels in the local dialect have shifted enough so that what comes out of the locals’ mouths when pronouncing _Muslim_ would strike a Western listener as anything at all approaching “Moslem”? Which Western listener? How is the word “Moslem” pronounced in English? How was it pronounced when English speakers first began writing it down? What makes you think that the pronunciation of “Moslem” and “Muslim” in English is or ever was substantially different? I think your speculative scenario is significantly oversimplifying the process of transliteration and orthography of foreign loanwords in a non-phonetic language like English. **kayaker** : _whooooosh!!_😃 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/50 "2016-07-21T00:44:12Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Which is another source of different spellings: some of the old transliterations English used were originally from Spanish, Portuguese or French. Assuming the above is correct, a Hispanic would have transliterated “Pago Pago” as Paño Paño; a Francophone as Pagno Pagno; a Catalan as Panyo Panyo. The original pronunciation is the same, but each of those people would have been working with a different set of transliteration tools. Another Pacific example: The capital of Guam in the native Chamorro language is Hagåtña. It was named Agaña by the Spanish, then when taken over by the US in 1898 the Americans simply ignored the tilde and called it “Agana” for a century (though locals knew to keep using the ñ sound). Then in 1998 the Guam Legislature officialized the Hagåtña spelling for both English and Chamorro documents. Many Western publications I’ve seen still just print “Hagatna”, though, apparently not feeling it worth the bother to look up the code. The island itself has the native name of Guåhån, which in modern Spanish would be transcribed as “Guaján”, but during colonial time had drifted into Guam. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/51 "2016-07-21T01:03:16Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Well, I think that reflects on the same point I was making. Pinyin is for native speakers of Chinese, not for native speakers of English. It was a mistake to adopt Pinyin as the standard for Chinese words in English. But the problem’s the same the other way around, one presumes - Chinese speakers going out into Western countries and talking about Don Tsichotte or flying Tsantam 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/52 "2016-07-21T01:29:27Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But the problem’s the same the other way around, one presumes - Chinese speakers going out into Western countries and talking about Don Tsichotte or flying Tsantam 😉 If they’re writing in Chinese for other Chinese-speaking people, they should do it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/53 "2016-07-21T01:43:23Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The reason some transliterations weren’t very close, like “Bombay” for a word actually pronounced “Mumbai,” > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Bombay was not a mispronunciation. It was the actual name of the city (or at that time, a group of fortifications of no great importance), derived from its Portuguese name. The name was changed to Mumbai in English in 1995, for reasons that have very little to do with history and a great deal to do with Hindu and Marathi nationalism. As RNATB says, “Bombay” is from Portuguese “Bom Bahia,” who founded and named the city. “Mumbai” was the Marathi pronunciation. A lot of native Bombayites—especially the non-Marathi population—still call it “Bombay.” Bombay is only about 40 percent Marathi-speaking (as a primary language). The rest speak Gujarati (about 20 percent), Bambaiya Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, English, etc. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > [Apparently an updating in translating techniques has taken place since you were taught the word “Moslem”.](http://mohammedamin.com/Community_issues/Koran-or-Quran.html) > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > We could go back to “Musselmen.” “Koran” and “Musselman” come from the Bengali and Hindi-Urdu pronunciations of those words. There’s no reason why English _must_ base its transliterations on the Arabic versions when they didn’t come into English directly from Arabic. ---
**Author:** ![Nelson\_Pike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Nelson\_Pike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nelson_Pike)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/54 "2016-07-21T16:21:26Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Well, as long as we don’t go back to calling them Saracens. How about Infidels? ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/55 "2016-07-21T17:58:40Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I thought the claim that most Korean words were derived from Chinese sounded wrong, so I looked it up. It’s true though. About 60% of Korean words are derived from Chinese. Thanks! The % depends how you count, others find more like 65-70% ‘Sino Korean words’ not weighted by usage. Weighted by usage it’s lower, but in informal or tech talk English loan words are used a lot now so it’s unclear if indigenous words are ever a majority, again depending how you count (does the verb ‘hada’ after a Chinese word to indicate verb form of the word count as an indigenous word? etc). Also those %'s don’t include ‘indigenous’ words which have a Chinese derivation but whose pronunciation has drifted away from the modern Korean pronunciation of the original Chines characters, and so are never written in Chinese characters. For example the word for a very Korean thing, kimchi, is often viewed as a purely indigenous word but isn’t. It originally derived from 沈菜 soak-vegetable, which would have been pronounced timchae in Korean at one time, though now those characters would be pronounced chimchae. Timchae morphed to dimchae (which is a brand name of special kimchi refrigerators) then kimchi. There are many other examples. The ‘Sino-Korean’ words in the 60-70% OTOH is limited to words pronounced the same way now as their component characters are pronounced now. OTOH some ‘Sino-Korean’ words were coined by the Koreans and many by the Japanese. Some are also used in modern Chinese, others aren’t. Many terms for modern/western things of the 19th-early 20th century (in politics, science, industry, warfare, etc) are the same pair of Chinese characters in Japanese and Korean, sometimes in Chinese too. Those words were usually coined in Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/56 "2016-07-21T22:56:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Well, I think that reflects on the same point I was making. Pinyin is for native speakers of Chinese, not for native speakers of English. It was a mistake to adopt Pinyin as the standard for Chinese words in English. I agree; I still use Wade-Giles transliterations wherever possible because they’re easier for native English speakers (including me) to read and pronounce. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/57 "2016-07-21T23:08:15Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Which Western listener? How is the word “Moslem” pronounced in English? How was it pronounced when English speakers first began writing it down? What makes you think that the pronunciation of “Moslem” and “Muslim” in English is or ever was substantially different? > > I think your speculative scenario is significantly oversimplifying the process of transliteration and orthography of foreign loanwords in a non-phonetic language like English. **Kimtsu** , see posts #9 (mine) and #13 ( **Johanna’s** ) in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=643863) regarding the pronunciation and transliteration of the name Osama/Usama. That’s kind of what I was getting at. I did find a place to look up Egyptian Arabic vocabulary specifically … and it appears in that dialect, they pronounce “Muslim” pretty much like it would be pronounced in Classical Arabic (no “_Moe-slame_” or anything like that). ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/58 "2016-07-21T23:42:07Z")
Up until sometime in the early 20[sup]th[/sup] century the nation of Japan was transliterated by the West as ‘Nippon’. I believe that the Japanese still spell it this way when using the Latin alphabet in their country. This is why along with the derogatory term ‘Jap’ there is also the older derogatory term ‘Nip’… ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/59 "2016-07-21T23:50:12Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Up until sometime in the early 20[sup]th[/sup] century the nation of Japan was transliterated by the West as ‘Nippon’. I believe that the Japanese still spell it this way when using the Latin alphabet in their country. This is why along with the derogatory term ‘Jap’ there is also the older derogatory term ‘Nip’… At the risk of hijacking the thread, the term “Jap” isn’t automatically considered derogatory outside the US. There was a thread about it a few years ago, IIRC. “Nip”, on the other hand, is widely regarded as derogatory and has been for a long time, from what I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354/60 "2016-07-22T00:40:32Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > We could go back to “Musselmen.” > [@Derleth](#): > > Well, as long as we don’t go back to calling them Saracens. It sometimes all of my strength to not give in to the Snark Side and play nice. 🙂 > [@Derleth](#): > > Of course it’s still Peking Duck. General Tso is [Zuo Zongtang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuo_Zongtang) now, but it’s still General Tso’s Chicken. > [@Requisite Simpson Quote](#): > > General Tso, you may’ve been a ruthless warmonger but your chicken is delectable! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ever-happened-to-moslem/760354.md?page=4)