Re: Beijing, Zhongguo, etc.

On 2008-08-21 Lars Finsen wrote:
 > > If they were raised in a bilingual
 > > environment, they probably feel equally
 > > natural with both pronunciations of their name
 > > and automatically use the appropriate one in
 > > context;
 >
 > Well, don't you think the fact that their names
 > actually are Spanish could lead to a natural
 > inclination for the Spanish pronunciation?
 >
 > Still I think it's likely a conscious
 > "affectation".
 >

I don't know. These people are first generation
immigrants and still fully bilingual. I'm sure
that first generation German, Scandinavian or
Slavic immigrants also were wont to pronounce
their surnames at least more as they had in their
L1s than their third generation descendants who
didn't know their grandparents' L1 any more and
adopt a more fully Anglicized pronunciation. Then
there are of course always those who consciously
adopt an Anglicized version early on (or had one
foisted on them at Ellis Island!) as when Svensson
 > Swanson, Klein > Cline (which incidentally
preserves the spelling at the price of altered
spelling and meaning).

You get both kinds over here too. Once on the
tram I overheard two teenagers, presumably second
or third generation Turks, discussing the best
Swedish pronunciation of the name Selcuk (approx.
[sEldZuk] in Turkish). The one who was the bearer
of the name insisted in the pure pronunciation,
but the other one argued that Swedes would
degrade it into [selj8k] and he further argued
that since the syllable [j8k] has obscene
connotations in Swedish his friend Selcuk
shouldn't resist the "Swedish" pronunciation
['sels\8k]. Maybe his grandchildren in turn will
change the spelling to Selchuck, but needless to
say young Selcuk stood by his pronunciation, and
thereby, I suspect, his identity.

I don't object when English speakers pronounce my
surname ['dZAns@n] or ['dZQns@n], but I always
pronounce it ['juns:on] myself, because that's who
I am. Not everybody feel that way, but please
don't ridicule us who do!

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
  à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
  ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
  c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)

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