Re: How you pronunce foreign place names

On 1/21/07, caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...> wrote:
> >Eugene Oh <un.doing@...> wrote:
>
> >In writing the reply to Leon's questions about Pinyin, I used the
> >word "Beijing", which made me curious as to how people habitually
> >pronounce the names of foreign places when speaking in a certain
> >language.
...
> I'm of the school that maintains that speakers of foreign languages
> do not have the right to tell speakers of English how to pronounce
> words in English, or indeed, even insist that we change our name for
> a place simply because they've decided to change the name of the
> place (new political entities excepted, e.g., Zaire).  Yes, I know,
> it's curmudgeonly.
I generally agree, but in specifics we differ..:

> Of the above 4 choices I go with #4.  I say /pi"kIN/.  Get back to
> me when the Italians start saying "Beijingo."
I'm afraid I very much doubt most people I talk to would know what
'Peking' referred to in a modern context. I say /b&idZIN/, although
the normal pronunciation hereabouts is /b&iZIN/ (I also have a
tendency to say /b&idZ/ for the color).

...
> I admit to a bit of inconsistency here.  While I have changed from
> Siam to Thailand, it's still Burma to me, not Myanmar, and Ceylon,
> not Sri Lanka.  I'd like to hear the average Anglophone get THAT "s"
> right.
Here, again... I also go for 'Burma', but once more everyone knows
where Sri Lanka is; substantially fewer know of Ceylon. And everyone
says it /Sr@ l&Nk@/. (As for the Indian placenames that have been
renamed, like Bombay->Mumbai, I think the Indians I know consitently
refer to them by their old/anglicised names, even (more so!) if they
come from the place in question ... it's Westerners who insist on
'Indian' names.)

(As for novel names that I've never heard pronounced, I generally try
and give them the best approximation I can with Australian English
sounds, unless they're from a language (like Spanish) which has a
conventional system of borrowing into (Au.) English. I certainly don't
use non-native sounds or reak havoc with my phonotactics just to
render a word a little closer... This tho I nowadays can say almost
any sound I want to, including clicks and ejectives run in as part of
a word.)

--
Tristan.