Darren G. wrote:
"MexicoDoug, try this little experiment while in the US-- write down
the word "Allende" on a piece of paper. Show it to every gringo
you meet,
ask them how to pronounce it.
Hey Darren, OK. Those sly gr*ngos!!! I just did and tried.
They pronounced:
"All GIMEEE!!!!"
"Better yet, get the whitest looking guy you can find to ask
for you."
OK - He said:
Me See-Ayyy-Eye", You GIMEE!!!
"I woud be shocked if anything more than a small minority of English
speakers got it right."
Not too shocked, just warmly stirred ;)
Best wishes,
Doug
-----Original Message-----
From: Darren Garrison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Meteorite List <[email protected]>
Sent: Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:16 am
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Pronouncing Willamette and other
meteorite names
On Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:45:25 -0700, you wrote:
As for Allende, someone said there is nothing wrong
With "Anglicizing" a word....You would have a VERY
Difficult time living in So. CA - going to El Cajon (el ca hone)
And La Jolla (la hoy ya) etc. Even in LA, they pronounce
It "row DAY oh" Drive, not rodeo drive, as it was the Spanish
Name place originally.
You can pick and choose names that keep their original pronounciation
if you want. But you can also pick and choose names that have been
Anglicized
if you want. The point is, if a word LOOKS like it follows the
spelling of
a "traditional" English word-- unless you have evidence
otherwise-- you
will usually try to pronounce it as if it were a "traditional"
English word
(and the
same goes for non-English speakers, of course-- if the word LOOKS
to fit
the conventions of your languge, I'll bet that, with no instruction
otherwise, you'll try to pronounce it according to the conventions
of your
language). Your examples "El Cajon" and "La Jolla" look obviously
Spanish and not
English. But
"Allende" looks like a perfectly cromulent English word-- you have,
Allentown,
PA, for example, not Ayantown, PA. So "Allende" just didn't
trigger an
alarm in my head to pronounce it differently-- I wasn't being
contrary, it
simply never occured to me.
MexicoDoug, try this little experiment while in the US-- write
down the
word "Allende" on a piece of paper. Show it to every gringo you
meet, ask
them how to pronounce it. Better yet, get the whitest looking guy
you can
find to ask for you. I woud be shocked if anything more than a small
minority of English
speakers got it right.
Also, another issue, I've never heard the large majority of all
meteorite names (and, indeed, possibly the majority of all techinical
scientific terms, species names, etc that are well known to me)
pronounced
aloud. Except for those who are professionals in the field and/or
go to
meteorite sales, I'd say that stands for most people who are
hobbyists in
obscure fields that are mostly accessed through books and the
internet,
without a local population of like-minded people to meet with.
Back to
Williamette, the first (and only) time I have
ever heard that word spoken aloud was in that film Darrly Pitt had
someone
put together-- that guy was pronouncing it right, I thought he was
a rube
getting it wrong.
Meteorites can come from anywhere in the world-- which means that you
are potentially faced with knowing the pronounciation rules/
phonics for any
language in the world-- does that assume that we should be
assumed to
know how all those other languages work when you just see the word in
print? (And I shudder to think of a meteorite named in a Khoisan or
similar language that strays profoundly from Indo-European phonics--
"anyone have a partslice of
clickpopgulp?")
The problem with "Anglicizing" a word is two fold:
1) it assumes an ethnocentric approach to the word and
So what? If you get rid of all the words that have been adopted into
and modified to make English, you'll have-- well, I guess you'll have
nothing, English is such a mongrel. Would you rather have English
more
massively complicated with exceptions to spelling/pronounciation
rules
than the chaos that it already is? I've been reading and writing
English
for all my life, and I still have to look up spellings of words
(including
in this post) because of the mess that English conventions are.
Pronouncing the names of all
foreign cities and countries the same way the natives do in their
language
would take massive effort.
Anyway, of course, you can call your mother or father's sister
"ant" or "aunt" and people will understand.... But one is correct
and
One is less so.
Right-- "ant" is correct. Only losers pronounce the silent "u".
(Myself, I always wonder how the word "o-rang-utan" to most people is
pronounced "arang-atang")
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