Still more anglicizing
Indirectly following up on Bob’s two posts on anglicizing Russian hockey players’ names, Barbara Partee has just posted to Language Log (by way of Chris Potts) on stress for Russian tennis players’ names.
September 21, 2004
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In my posts I marked stress as the broadcasters produced them - but I had little or no idea whether the stress is ‘correct’, as in matching the stress of the Russian source.
But to add to the data set, I have located and posted a rich source: the official NHL Player pronunciation guide.
It includes “foh-NEH-tihk” transcriptions of all names of players (and game officials!) for the 2002-2003 season (sorry - couldn’t find the 03-04 guide, and the 04-05 guide currently seems pointless).
The guide is a useful tool given the wealth of French, Swedish, Czezh, Slovakian, Finnish, and Russian names (among the many other nationalities represented in the Saskatchewan and Minnesota contingents) - this means someone could use it to evaluate proper or improper transfer of stress placement, as well as low-vowel nativization.
It does not differentiate nationality though - so true native pronunciations might be hard to track.
The guide is compiled and edited yearly by Mike Emrick, himself a broadcaster. Emrick is a good keep-it-simple play-by-play caller; probably the best in the US for viewers who are either unfamiliar with the game or casually knowledgeable. We like him - even though he regularly calls games for the New Jersey Devils.
Comment by Bob — September 21, 2004 @ 1:14 pm