Re: New pronunciation of Bangalore

ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Mike Wright wrote:

Oliver Cromm wrote:

* Mike Wright wrote:

Oliver Cromm wrote:

* Paul D wrote:

Not knowing Turkish, I personally would have no idea how to say
"Türkiye" if I saw it in an English text. (I could make a pretty good
guess but it still wouldn't sound like English.)

Why do English-speaking people insist that the name of every place in
the world has to sound like English?

For the same reason that Japanese-speaking people insist that every
place in the world has to sound like Japanese and Chinese-speaking
people insist that every place in the world has to sound like Chinese?

Why does Japan insist that switching to a Japanese name must be a
prerequisite to aquiring Japanese citizenship?

I've never known anyone who did manage to acquire Japanese citizenship, so I didn't even know that it was a requirement. Many countries seem to go out of their way to promote what they see as cultural unity. Many have official national languages. Some countries have nationality laws that are explicitly ethnocentric, or even somehwhat racist. See the Wikipedia article on "jus sanguinis" at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_sanguinis>.

I recall being told--back in the late '60s--that ethnic Chinese in Thailand were required by law to take Thai names. Checking on the Web, I see lots of mention of Chinese in Thailand taking Thai names, but nothing about it ever being required by law.

Indonesia did have such a law, which was applied to Chinese Indonesians starting in 1960--probably as a result of (perceived, at least) local Chinese involvement in a Communist attempt to overthrow the government.

Some Southeast Asians seem to have unfriendly feelings toward the Chinese. Some Japanese diplomat visited Indonesia a decade or two back, and there were anti-Japanese riots (still remembering WW2) in which many *Chinese* businesses were destroyed. (Anti-Chinese prejudices in Asia seem very similar to anti-Jewish prejudices in Europe and the US--they're seen as culturally, and often religiously, separate, clannish, working too hard at acquiring money, and so on.)

Yeah, probably. So, self-centeredness it is.

No. It's called having a native language with a common phonology (and a
writing system that more or less fits that phonology).

Can you tell me how a Japanese or a Chinese should pronounce Austin,
Yorkshire, Paris, or Maghreb?

Or, for that matter, how a Frenchman should pronounce St. Louis, Misouri?

... be true to his Germanic forbears and call it St. Klovis:-)

And, what should a Spaniard should do about Los Angeles

Call it "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río
de Porciúncula" and since it is a noun clause, permit Anglos to say it
in translation as "The city of our lady the queen of the Angels, on
Porciuncula" or "The Angels" for short:-)

and San Jose in California,

Hispanics and Anglos pronounce it similarly.

But not identically. Except for pronouncing the <j> as /h/, there's no real attempt at a Spanish pronunciation.

or Amarillo

... give it also an English spelling Ammer Rio to make it easier for
Anglos to pronounce:->

Well, the point was not about correcting the local pronunciation of the town name, but whether French and Spanish speakers should yield to the local pronunciation--and whether they should even be expected to know what it is.

and Refugio in Texas?

I bet that no one who hasn't heard it could ever guess how this one is pronounced.

Most English-only-speakers faced with "Türkiye" won't have a clue.

I tried describing the old spelling <Byelorussia> as [bjEl@ru:j@]

Really? What is the <ss> doing there? (Or was that a typo in the phonetic rendering?)

to an
American. Either he didn't have a clue even after hearing it or he just
couldn't pronounce [bjEl]; the closest two sounds he could produce
sounded like an American saying 1) "be yeller" and 2) "buy yeller".

Be that as it may, it's not just English speakers; the Hindi and
Malayalam equivalents of Turk sound like [tUr.u"ki:] and [tUlu"k@n] to
me and such Indian pronunciations influence Indians' pronunciation of
<Turkey> when speaking English.

Neither Japanese nor any Chinese language that I'm familiar with includes all the sounds required for "Türkiye"--even excluding he <ü>.

--
Mike Wright
http://www.raccoonbend.com
.

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