Say CURASAO — The Name the World Still Needs to Learn.
The FIFA presenter looked at our name and stumbled as if he fell off a cliff.
“Ku-ra-ko.”
A sound that has nothing to do with who we are, with what we carry, with what we have protected for generations.
But before we make his mistake larger than it is, we must admit something deeper: He did not stumble over our name. He stumbled over an island the world has never truly learned to know.
The name we carry — and that the world misreads
Here is a truth we have kept quiet for too long: Our official name — Curaçao — is a colonial spelling.
Our real name — KURASOU — lives in our mouth.
Our elders even said KURASOW.
And the oldest maps show KURASSAU — the double S of the Caquetío, the first people of this island.
That S-sound is ours.No cedilla. No French projection. No European reinterpretation.
We are not “Cura-çau.” We are KURASOU — rhythm, breath, sound, identity.
The stumble: what really happened linguistically
When the presenter saw Curaçao, his brain did exactly what English-language brains always do:
* C → k
* ra → ra
* ç → unknown → replaced by k
* ao → English “ow”
Result:
KU — RA — KO.
Not because our name is difficult. But because it was never meant for this alphabet.
The world reads colonial spelling, but never hears the real name of this island.
The shock: why we reacted so strongly
Because we know our name is not an exotic puzzle.
It is our identity.
It is our history.
It is our global presence.
But above all:
it’s something the world never learned to pronounce
because we never dared to clearly explain it ourselves.
That is why this mispronunciation hurt. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a mirror. It exposed one truth we have avoided for decades:
“For thirty years we told the world who we are,
but the world didn’t hear us until one man said it wrong and suddenly everyone saw how invisible we really are.”
The failed branding: 30+ years of promotion without identity
We had logos.
We had slogans.
We ran campaigns.
We sold sun, sea, smiles, and stock photos.
But we never answered the simplest question: How do you actually pronounce our name?
We invested millions in imagery, but nothing in clarity. We sold beaches, but forgot our sound. The result? An island beautifully written, but mispronounced worldwide.
The facts: five+ years of cedilla campaign — zero results
“The so-called ‘cedilla campaign,’ which ran for over five years with videos, animations, and English-language educational content, never produced measurable results.
There was no structural evaluation of its effectiveness, and no evidence that international pronunciation improved.
Now, in five seconds, one unexpected stumble by a FIFA presenter exposes
what millions in branding could not achieve: the world still cannot pronounce our name and this time the proof is viral, global, and impossible to ignore.” It hits hard. But it was necessary to finally see it.
The real identity of our island
We say KURASOU.
Our elders said KURASOW.
Our history writes KURASSAU.
The world sees Curaçao.
As long as that gap exists, presenters will keep stumbling. Not out of disrespect. But because they are trying to pronounce something we never clearly explained.
The call: from today — #SayCurasao
This is our chance. A moment no campaign could ever buy. It’s written Curaçao. It’s pronounced CURASAO. And we, the people, say KURASOU.
No excuses.
No cedilla myths.
No confusion.
Only truth.
Only rhythm.
Only identity.
Note — the question no colonizer ever asked
And perhaps now is the moment to finally ask the question
no colonial power ever bothered to ask
and we ourselves far too rarely:
Why did the Caquetío call the people of this island “Indios Curaçao”?
Why was there a settlement on the Venezuelan coast called
“Pueblito Curaçao”?
What did CURASSOU mean to them — before Europe existed on these maps?
Historian Jan Hartog uses the term, but never explains it. The double-S forms on the oldest maps align more with Indigenous phonetics than with Portuguese or Dutch orthography. Is it a coincidence that we today call ourselves Yu di Kòrsou?
Or is that — without us knowing — an echo of what the Caquetío called us centuries ago?
Maybe in every debate about our name, we are not defending the cedilla…but the heritage.
The ancient identity of KURASSAU.
Conclusion — the wave that now begins
The FIFA presenter made a mistake. But his mistake gave us something no branding budget could buy:
He showed the world that we are still invisible
and gave us the perfect moment to change that.
From today:
Say CURASAO
Because Curaçao deserves a name the world finally learns to pronounce.
Dedicated to my friend Ced Ride, the man who saw this problem long ago, spoke about it, repeated it, while nobody listened. Today, the world itself proves he was right all along.