Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

Lars Finsen wrote:
> Den 21. aug. 2008 kl. 02.17 skreiv Herman Miller:
>
>> Thanks for the example. Ušlu would work in both Tirelat ['uSlu] and
>> Minza ['us`lu], although Tirelat might assimilate the l to a voiceless
>> fricative (Ušłu). I think this is one of many examples where the
>> English name of a city differs from its local name (e.g., Munich vs.
>> München, Naples vs. Napoli), only in this case, they happen to be
>> spelled the same. :-)
>
> I think it's rather a case of borrowing the written form and guessing
> its pronunciation based on the English pronunciation rules. The city has
> been known as Oslo only since 1925.
Maybe in the case of 'Oslo' - but it should certainly _not_ be assumed
that is always (or even usually) the case. For example, the modern
English pronunciation of 'Paris' is *not* due to spelling pronunciation.
the borrowing was made centuries ago when the final -s was pronounced in
French. Since then both English & French have developed in their own
ways and the name has shared in the development; neither the modern
French nor the modern English pronunciation reflects the native
pronunciation at the time of borrowing.

Nor is it true that anglophones give pronunciation based _English_
rules. The most common pronunciation of Beijing that I hear on the
British media pronounces the medial _j_ as [Z] - and judging by one
email I read in this thread, this is not unknown on the other side of
the Pond. These people are giving the _j_ the *French* pronunciation
because "It's a _foreign_ word, in'it?"

[snip]
>
> Den 20. aug. 2008 kl. 19.03 skreiv ROGER MILLS:
[snip]
>> Nativized forms of many well-known place names exist and are of long
>> standing. What do Norwegians call Moscow?  Not [moskva] I'll wager.
>
> You just lost a wager. It's pretty common here to stress the first
> syllable, but when we do, there's often someone nearby who will jump in
> to correct us.
Bully for the Norwegians!

The question bilingual nations (and the multilingual Swiss) has been
raised a few times in this thread. So what do the Norwegians do in such
cases? What do they call the capitals of Wales (Caerdydd _or_ Cardiff)
or of Belgium (Brussel _or_ Bruxelles), and how do they pronounce them?

> It's barely on-topic,
True.

[snip]
>
> There is, by the way, one language that nativises even more weirdly than
> English: the Welsh.
I suspect Mandarin will nativize even more weirdly.

[snip]
>
>> This seems a very Anglo-Saxon thing. I've got a German book on the
>> shelves nearby that consistently uses Libau, Dünaburg, Wenden, etc for
>> Liepāja, Daugavpils, and Cēsis (Latvia) and I'm sure it's authors didn't
>> feel guilty.
>
> Well, the Germans perhaps are even more notorious than the English for
> having their own names for everything.
Are they 'worse' than the Welsh, or not so 'bad'?

> Many of the German names were
> borrowed into Scandinavian, too, but have since been replaced. We
> formerly used Prag for Praha, for example, and Neapel for Napoli.
...and, presumably, give the _h_ in Praha a voiced pronunciation as in
Czech.

You'll be pleased to hear that Livorno is (almost) always its modern
Italian spelling nowadays - indeed the older 'Leghorn' would not be
recognized by many moderns. For centuries we pronounced the final -s in
'Calais' (as it was pronounced when the city was ruled by English
monarchs  ;)  But now a Frenchified pronunciation is the norm in Britain
- indeed, anyone pronouncing the way it was still said a century or so
back would now be considered ignorant. So there is still hope for us
anglophones    :)

--
Ray
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Frustra fit per plura quod potest
fieri per pauciora.
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