Re: New pronunciation of Bangalore

* 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?

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).

Actually, the Japanese and Chinese have an argument in favor of their
pronunciations, because they can't express foreign pronunciations easily
in writing. The interpretation of written English is fairly open. When
in doubt, I am in favor of changing the writing to better accomodate the
sound.

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

[...]

How are your tones when you pronounce Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai,
Burmese, and Japanese place names? Are you careful about your Japanese
vowel length?

[...]

Despite my clarifying statement, you get my totally wrong. I don't want
to prescribe any specific pronunciation, I don't insist that it should
be understandable to the people from other countries. I am sceptical to
changing well-ingrained names with a history, like "Turkey". But for
place names that are not yet widely known, and even more so for personal
names, I would welcome a little more audacity in trying a new sound.

People will pretty much do the best they can. You can try to demand
more, but you probably won't get it.

I ask people to try the best they can, and not refrain from it for
ideological reasons. Meanwhile I'm open for discussion on what is the
best.

The Japanese are constantly adding tricks to Kana writing to better
represent foreign sounds. Relatively recent additions include
representations for the sound /v/ and for CV-combinations like /fa/,
/fo/, which are foreign to Japanese. Also, there is a tendency to change
the transcription of the final -er in words like computer, printer from
/a:/ to /a/, which I welcome (especially in the case of my name).

That's the kind of thing I'm asking for. For English-speaking people, it
would go a long way if they sometimes tried to better imitate the basic
vowels that are common in many languages the world.
--
ASCII to ASCII, DOS to DOS
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: New pronunciation of Bangalore
    ... "Türkiye" if I saw it in an English text. ... guess but it still wouldn't sound like English.) ... place in the world has to sound like Japanese and Chinese-speaking ... prerequisite to aquiring Japanese citizenship? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: New pronunciation of Bangalore
    ... "Türkiye" if I saw it in an English text. ... guess but it still wouldn't sound like English.) ... place in the world has to sound like Japanese and Chinese-speaking ... I recall being told--back in the late '60s--that ethnic Chinese in Thailand were required by law to take Thai names. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: pudding and de v. di
    ... I've heard it said that KYA more closely represents the English "ka" sound, e.g. in "cash", however this seems to suggest that the Japanese "ka" isn't really pronounced like English "ka" after all. ... /a/ after /y/ tends to be fronted, chimpira speaking or not. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • [sljfaq] Japanese lettering page added
    ... In the same way that there are various ways of writing English, ... Japanese has many different ways of being ... traditional square style of characters, with horizontal lines slanting upwards going from left to right. ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Re: Learning pronunciation
    ... Any advice for learning pronunciation? ... Sound recordings only don't tell ... English 'o'. ... pay attention to Japanese who are relatively fluent English ...
    (sci.lang.japan)