Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

Will respond in detail later when I can see the quoted text and make
sure things are in the right context.  But just to be clear: I've read
"The Ugly American", and I'm painfully familiar with the bigotry
(manifested as arrogance, indifference, jingoism, xenophobia...) that
is all too common among my countrymen (and fellow Anglophones
elsewhence, to a lesser degree). I am not defending that. But the
pronunciation of foreign names in an Anglophonic context is a separate
matter.  Heck, if I insert meticulously-pronounced Spanish food item
names into my otherwise pure-gringo fast food order, the
coincidentally-Hispanic person behind the counter is more likely to
think I'm being patronizing than respectful.



On 8/20/08, Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...> wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
>> quoting me:
>>>
>>> Sorry, what does it signify that initial comma there?
>>
>> Secondary stress.  That is, the stress pattern is the same as if it
>> were the two words 'hiro 'shima, but with the stress in the second
>> "word" more pronounced.
>
> Thanks. I don't think I'll ever learn all those phonetic codes...but
> I find it actually more effective to ask someone than looking them up
> again and again.
>
>>> Careless pronunciation of foreign words feels disrespectful
>>> somehow, and from my point of view I find the degradation of a
>>> perfectly fine word like burrito kind of disconcerting.
>>
>> It's not necessarily "careless", and Anglicization is not
>> "degradation".  Please avoid such loaded terms.
>
> Hard to avoid when you are kind of disconcerted...
>
>> Loanwords - and place names that are sufficiently well-known to be
>> essentially loanwords - get adapted to the phonology of the lessee
>> language.  English is hardly unique in this, although we do have an
>> excess of loanwords and the whole "ginormous population largely
>> isolated from contact with other languages" thing exaggerating the
>> effect.
>
> That's a good point, and I think the substantial differences between
> the phonetics of English and those of most other languages add to it
> as well. To a foreigner it does convey the impression of an attitude
> like the Winston Churchill "Foreign names were made for Englishmen,
> not Englishmen for foreign names" thing, and I wouldn't be surprised
> if there's some of that stuff still lingering on as well, on a more
> or less conscious level. At least, what's wrong with trying to
> imitate a reasonably correct pronunciation of Milano and Torino for
> example? That shouldn't be so difficult. Tradition is the only reason
> not to. If a Hispanic TV presenter actually is bilingual, I think it
> must feel the most natural for him to pronounce his name the way it
> was given to him, and if he does it for any conscious reason at all,
> it's for a matter of ethnic pride, not to raise laughs, for sure.
>
> Anyway, I'm not trying to put you or the cultures and traditions of
> the whole English-speaking world down. You belong up there. I just
> thought it couldn't hurt if I told you, as a friend, how this
> attitude to foreign names comes across to the outside - especially as
> there are so many here now defending it.
>
> I think I could tell you, too, without offending, that between
> ourselves, we foreigners sometimes have our own laughs at the ways in
> which you English-speakers pronounce our names. I think it's like I
> said, that you are handicapped due to the difference in phonetics,
> and that carelessness isn't that much a part of it. Your ['azloU] is
> rather a lot more different from the local pronunciation of Oslo than
> what you find in most other languages. (In fact the local
> pronunciation is more like ['u²Slu] - if I can use a "²" for toneme
> 2. A retracted s before l is the norm in the east, where Oslo is
> situated.) But it is noticeable that Britons tend to do better with
> European names than Americans do, and the other way around with Asian
> names for example. Europeans in general often do well in pronouncing
> each others' names, but have problems with Chinese or Australian
> native names, for example.
>
>> Now, there are cases where the standard English name is very different
>> from the native one, and it might eliminate some confusion if we
>> adopted the latter - the whole Georgia (country) vs Georgia (US state)
>> thing comes to mind.  But even there, if we did adopt the native name,
>> it'd still be Anglicized to something like [s@k_ha`r\t'vEloU].
>
> You sure about that E?
> Anyhow, I guess Georgia, the country, is known as Georgia in just
> about every language in the world.
>
>>> I guess the phonetics of English makes it more difficult to
>>> pronounce foreign names than in many other
>>> languages.
>>
>> I don't really think that's true, although I don't have any evidence
>> one way or the other.
>
> So it's just the attitude, then?
>
> LEF
>
--
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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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