Re: new Klingon spelling

From:    Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
> Instead, I thought I ask what you feel about "quasitranslations". For example,
> the traditional Swedish name of Belarus is _Vitryssland_, which is a perfectly
> transparent compound meaning "White Russia"*. After the place got independent
> in '91, some voices were raised what we should ditch that name and adopt
> _Belarus_ out of "respect". No idea what the Belarussians would have thought
> of it had it been done - likely they hadn't cared much at all - but I know I'd
> be anything but happy if anglophones suddenly replaced "Sweden" with some
> mangling of _Sverige_. What's your view?
My point was not how a proper noun should be pronounced in general,
but how it should be pronounced in the presence of a person whom it
affects. Thus:  if you meet a person from Belarus, I was suggesting
that one should ask how that person would prefer that word to be
pronounced, and if they don't care, then there's no problem.  This
situation comes up very frequently in discussing the native tribes
of America, whose traditional English designations frequently mean
things like "enemy", or "slaves" or "devils" or a variety of other
things which might cause offense to the tribe in question.  In the
case of the Meskwaki [mEskwaki] (whose language I study), who now
live in Iowa, the more traditional "Fox" comes from a French
missionary's misconstrual of one clan's name for the name of the whole
tribe.  The word itself would not appear to be particularly offensive.
However, the Meskwaki themselves are quite adamant:  that's not their
name, and they don't appreciate being called by that.  For them, it
is akin to your name being "John", and someone always inexplicably
calling you "Phil" or "Pete", as if they can't remember your name.
It won't do much harm to individual Meskwakis if you go around calling
their tribe "Fox" as long as you never meet them -- there are only 1300
of them, afterall. However, if you do meet one he's likely to at the
very least make value-judgements of you (along the lines of "Oh,
that's just more of the same White-man behavior"), and might tell
you for future reference.  And even if you don't meet one, by not
using the preferred name, you inhibit their chances of changing
other people's language habits, which they also don't like.  This
is in short not a matter of what is right, though it might appear
that, as practically making some minimal effort to do someone the
favor of treating them as they want to be treated.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier            "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

Reply