Browsing by Author "Rosa, Manuel da Silva"
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- CRISTOFORO COLOMBO versus CRISTÓBAL COLÓN Cristoforo Colombo, the weaver from Genoa, was not Don Cristóbal Colón, the navigator from IberiaPublication . Rosa, Manuel da Silva; Meneses, Avelino de Freitas de; Costa, João Paulo Oliveira eABSTRACT: In the interest of clarity and consistency we will write the navigator’s name, whom the English call Christopher Columbus, as Don Cristóbal Colón (1455?-1506). Colón is the surname he used while living in Castile - see Figure 1. Colón is also the surname utilized for five centuries in all the Spanish-speaking countries, and the surname by which his Spanish descendants are presently known. We will employ this name when quoting texts and only use a different form of the name if it becomes necessary to clarify a document. Therefore, phrases such as “uno che se dimanda Coloma, grandissimo marinaro, nepote del grande Coloma de Francia”1 may be corrected to “uno che se dimanda Colón, grandissimo marinaro, nepote del grande Colombo de Francia.” We will designate the navigator’s two brothers by their Castilian names Bartolomé Colón (1457?-1514) and Diego Colón (1459?-1515). Although Don Cristóbal’s first-born son is called Diego Colón in Spain, we will use his Portuguese name Diogo Colón (1480-1526) to differentiate him from his uncle Diego. As for Don Cristóbal Colón’s other son, we will call him Don Hernando Colón (1488-1539), the name on his tomb in the Cathedral of Seville. In our view, proper names should never be translated and there should be a rule, especially when dealing with surnames, to keep them in their original language format. When a name is translated it ceases to be the person’s actual name and becomes a pseudonym. For example, the Portuguese name Fernão de Magalhães started to be written as Ferdinand Magellan in Spanishspeaking countries and most of the world knows him by this Spanish name. Few know who we are talking about if we call him Fernão de Magalhães, his birth name. It also happens that the modification/translation of names from one language to another does not follow a standard rule. George Washington, the First President of the United States of America, is not usually translated into other languages.