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I was speaking to a friend yesterday, a 60-something Brit/big time track trivia master, and he said the great Abebe Bikila (Gold Rome, Tokyo Marathon) and the amazing Ethiopian Bekele brothers are relatives, but he wasn't sure how, i.e. grandkids, nephews, cousins or whatever....
I searched and searched the web for confirmation, but could not find anything definitive.... amazing what a dearth of info there is on a double world record holder!
What is clear, is that the symbols in Amharic (main Ethiopian language) for "Be" and "Bi" are incredibly similar and converting such sounds into European alphabets is kinda hit and miss, there is really no set standard like if symbol "x" automatically translates as say "be" or "bi" in English/French/Italian etc. See link below for Ethiopic script and one linquist's translations:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm
But having said that, it is also standard convention that there are no inherited surnames in Ethiopia and people sometimes take their patronymic (father's first name) as a second name.
So, the similarity in names does not necessarily indicate a relationship.......
Anyway, if my friend (who is normally right on the mark on most other trivia) is correct, then it would be a fabulous story.
Anyone else know about this??
I searched and searched the web for confirmation, but could not find anything definitive.... amazing what a dearth of info there is on a double world record holder!
What is clear, is that the symbols in Amharic (main Ethiopian language) for "Be" and "Bi" are incredibly similar and converting such sounds into European alphabets is kinda hit and miss, there is really no set standard like if symbol "x" automatically translates as say "be" or "bi" in English/French/Italian etc. See link below for Ethiopic script and one linquist's translations:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm
But having said that, it is also standard convention that there are no inherited surnames in Ethiopia and people sometimes take their patronymic (father's first name) as a second name.
So, the similarity in names does not necessarily indicate a relationship.......
Anyway, if my friend (who is normally right on the mark on most other trivia) is correct, then it would be a fabulous story.
Anyone else know about this??
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