![]() |
|
June 22nd, 2010
01:25 PM ET
Nikki Haley provokes question: What's Sikhism?
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN While researching my prior post about Nikki Haley coming under attack by her fellow South Carolina Republicans for her Sikh heritage, I came across a local activist, Oran Smith of the Palmetto Family Council, who told CNN, “Most people can’t even pronounce ‘Sikh,’ even the ones that are criticizing her.” For the record, the word Sikh rhymes with click. But knowing how to pronounce Sikhism won’t take you very far toward understanding whether this religious tradition is something that voters in South Carolina should fear and candidates in South Carolina should flee. So what are Sikhs and Sikhism all about? To answer that question, I contacted Gurinder Singh Mann, who occupies an endowed chair in Sikh Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mann, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sikhism (and himself a Sikh), took time out from a conference he was attending at Lund University, Sweden, to tell me this:
I then consulted the entry on Sikhism in my book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn’t. This entry begins by observing that "the term Sikh means 'learner' or 'disciple,' so Sikhs are disciples of the one God and those who learn from its gurus." The entry continues:
There are now about 25 million Sikhs worldwide, making Sikhism one of the top eight religions in the world in terms of size. So whatever part of Nikki Haley (who is now a Methodist) reveres her Sikh heritage is in good company. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Stephen Prothero. |
![]() ![]() About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team. |
|
Thank you for any other informative site. The place else may just I get that type of information written in such an ideal manner? I've a challenge that I am just now operating on, and I have been at the glance out for such info.
Sikh is actually pronounced as "seek," not rhyming with click.
Actually in Punjabi which is the language of the Sikhs, the word sikh which means to learn is indeed pronounced sik (like click). However the same word in Hindi which is the mainstream Indian language is pronounced seek and that's probably where the traditional but incorrect pronunciation of Sikh (as seek) in english comes from. However, as a Sikh myself I don't consider this to be an issue and when speaking english I too usually pronounce it as seek but in punjabi I would definitely use the correct pronunciation (sik). The latter sounds a bit strange when speaking english.