Comments on: Foreign pronunciation

By: Hydra-Cephalic Phonology « Vifargent

Hydra-Cephalic Phonology « Vifargent — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:41:13 +0000

[...] entirely different today (why I speak Spanish like a Salvadoran) I came upon an old thread on phonoblog in which a few posters struggle mildly to figure out through what principle or principles in US [...]

By: Costa Rica Real Estate Prince

Costa Rica Real Estate Prince — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:05:21 +0000

Nice post! I like the humor on the last part when a friend asked Eric why did he chose to use chopsticks rather than fork, LOL! I think one the main reasons why there is such a misunderstanding between two different races is the language barrier. Either one cannot speak the language or cannot pronounce it correctly. Sometimes, it is good to learn other languages aside from English which I believe is the international language. But still cannot help it that there are some parts of the world which are non-speaking English countries and in order to communicate with them, you have to learn their Spanish tongue in particular.

By: name meanings

name meanings — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:32:53 +0000

There is really no reason to change the way a place name sounds just because you are speaking another language. It can also change the meaning of a place name when it is not pronounced correctly.

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 22:53:43 +0000

I struggled with the choice between pretentious and wrong pronunciation for years. As a US correspondent, I sometimes needed to pronounce names that don’t come up particularly often in the media of my target country, but when they do, they’re typically pronounced as if by someone who doesn’t know their original pronunciation: Arkansas [ʌɹkʌnsʌs], Utah [utʌɦ], etc. So what does one do? Meet the rather non-existent expectations of the majority, or sound like an ignorant to those who know the American pronunciation — “the idiot’s reporting from the US and doesn’t even know how to pronounce the names.”

As much as I look down on the pretentious pronunciation when I speak privately, that was my choice in the end — in order not to undermine my potential credibility with those who “know.” In some instances, I actually decided to make ultrabrief references to both pronunciations, along the lines “Chicago [ʃɪka:gɘu] commonly pronounced [tʃikego] in [my language]…” and I went on with the story.

Hey, I’m innocent! When faced with the options of being seen as either pretentious or wrong, give me pretentious…

By: William

William — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 19:33:38 +0000

I’m experiencing flashbacks of my experience living in a very left oriented group house in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood in Washington, DC in the early 90’s. Several of my house mates habitually shifted in mid-sentence from English to the Spanish pronunciation of a Latin person or place name, especially when referring to Nicaragua or El Salvador. I found this to be irritating, pretentious and PC. I still do. NPR’s Mandalit del Barco comes immediately to mind. While I respect her pride in her Hispanic heritage, as well as her considerable journalistic skills, I find myself turning the volumn down when when she delivers a story. I know. Not very PC.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 09:25:58 +0000

I find American pronunciation of foreign words and place names very unappealing and flat, hence my attempts to pronounce those places I’ve lived or visited and know well (mostly Israel and the Middle East) as people in those places would pronounce them.

By: Greta

Greta — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 01:42:38 +0000

I’ve always struggled with this question, and even more so now that I am dating a French man. In the beginning, I erred on the side of calling him ['æɹ.ɪk] in English rather than [e.'ʀik] in French, mostly because it’s so unnatural to switch stress patterns. Maybe it was laziness and maybe it was fear of seeming pretentious. In any case, one day he asked me to call him by “his NAME”, meaning [e.'ʀik]. So, being lazy, I started compromising - calling him ['æɹ.ɪk] when speaking English (unless feeling highly energetic) and [e.'ʀik] in French. THEN, ONE DAY his mother heard me call him ['æɹ.ɪk] several times. She asked whether the [R] sound was too hard for me. The tilt of her eyebrow, and her surprised “mais…” (pronounced [ba:]) when I sweetly responded with a lilting [e.'ʀik] made me change my rules. Now I call him [e.'ʀik] whenever SHE is around and {insert-term-of-endearment-here} otherwise.

Language is all about politics.

By: phonoloblog » Language use on NPR

phonoloblog » Language use on NPR — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 20:32:46 +0000

[...] In his comment on my recent post on angst, Adam Ussishkin notes this recent piece by NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin on language use on NPR, some of which happens to relate to my two posts last month on foreign pronunciation. Ben Zimmer writes to point to this response to some of what Dvorkin writes in the piece, which Ben found via languagehat. Here’s my favorite quote from the response: [...]

By: phonoloblog » More foreign pronunciation

phonoloblog » More foreign pronunciation — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 21:46:26 +0000

[...] The hourly news summaries on NPR this morning were being delivered by Lakshmi Singh, and the top story was the earthquake in Kashmir. I wasn’t able to record a clip in time, but it was interesting to hear Singh’s pronunciation of Pakistan as [ˈpakistan] as opposed to the more usual American pronunciation [ˈpækɪstæn], especially while Kashmir, India, and Afghanistan all seemed to be pronounced with her usual native American English accent (the last of these as [əfˈgænɪstæn]). Given Singh’s name, one might expect some connection to this part of the world, though her NPR bio says that “Singh’s mother is Puerto Rican, her father is from Trinidad”, and implies that she identifies pretty strongly with the Hispanic side of her heritage, having majored in “broadcast journalism and Latin American studies” and being “a regular contributor to NPR’s Latino USA” (a show on which you can pretty reliably count on hearing Spanish-accent pronunciations of Hispanic place names even by native English speakers). [...]

By: Lance

Lance — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 18:42:57 +0000

I recall my extemporaneous speaking coach in high school listening to me give a six-minute talk on French politics, mentioning Francois Mitterand and Jean-Marie Le Pen and so forth, and saying afterwards, “Your French pronunciation is terrific. Lose it.” His point being that, when speaking to the average forensics judge, being comprehensible is more important than being correct.

Of course, we also anglicize, say, the names of popes (did John Paul II really call himself “John Paul”?), and sufficiently old monarchs of Europe (Phillip of France, Catherine of Russian–though not “John” for “Ivan”, I suppose). Indeed, to the point of calling Jeanne D’Arc “Joan of Arc”, even though she was not in any way of Arc, but was the daughter of a man whose surname was “D’Arc”. With modern leaders–you wouldn’t expect to hear a reference to “Francis Mitterand” or “John Chrétien”; of course, I’ve yet to meet an American who pronounces Tony Blair’s first name with the T unaspirated, so I suppose that respect for foreign cultures only goes so far.

It’s definitely the case, I believe, that a speaker is far more likely to give the proper native pronunciation of a word which is also used in English, such as “Honduras” or “Catalan”, than the speaker is to substitute a native word, such as “francais” or “Deutschland”. That does, though, beg the question of French names: people wouldn’t say “Espana” for “Spain”, but why the anglicization of “France”? (He said, too busy to look up the IPA. Y’all need an IPA typewriter for this blog.) Or “Paris”, say. But on the other hand, when’s the last time you heard anyone refer to “Chartres” as if it were pronounced like the English words “char truss”, as opposed to “short” with a different vowel?

Conclusion: I’m not a sociolinguist. But if I were, I’d have some much better sense of why you see this kind of variation, with some foreign names but not others anglicized.