Re: new Klingon spelling

--- "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> wrote:

> In the case of Iraq, the quality of the two
> vowels had no original
> basis in the pronunciation of the foreign
> tongue; they were simply
> guessed at through the medium of writing.
I think that's a very important point. To the
English reader's sensibility, Iraq is a totally
foreign looking beast. The closest normal name is
/ajrlInd/. While final Q is totally unenglish, at
least the first part of the name is not too
strange. So, I guess I just don't understand what
the problem with /ajr&k/ really is. Unless
there's some weird charge of racism or
antisemitism going on that I'm not aware of.

> That is, the English
> speakers' ignorance of Arabic lead them to
> arbitrarily assign
> values based not on anything to do with their
> internal grammar of
> English, but with the social conventions
> associated with English orthography.
Of course! We (English users) are under
absolutely NO obligation to even consider how
foreigners pronounce their own names. If they
expect that nicety, they can jolly well give
themselves anglofriendly names! ;)

> (Personally, aside from these issues, I find it
> disrespectful
> not to make an effort to pronounce the latter
> category of terms
> as it would be in the source language.
I find it totally unnecessary. Why should I
expect Spaniards to call me /@'merIkEn/ and not
estadounidense or norteamericano? That's alittle
beyond. They speak Spanish, not English.

> It's not "wrong", except
> insofar as it is "wrong" not to take into
> consideration other
> people's cultures as valid just as your own.
This has nothing to do with cultural equality.

And if we need to make thát argument, is not our
own American way (pronouncing foreigners' country
names according to our own language's rules) just
as valid? Sauce for the goose, meseems.

Padraic.


=====
la cieurgeourea provoer mal trasfu ast meiyoer ke 'l andrext ben trasfu.


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