Re: Pronouncing Names
- From: wollman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Garrett Wollman)
- Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 04:48:34 +0000 (UTC)
In article <pj3i2499dtfogptfcmkopgrfrs4u882n9r@xxxxxxx>,
Hatunen <hatunen@xxxxxxx> wrote:
[I wrote:]
I've noticed that the mispronunciation of Finnish NHL players' names
seems to be fairly consistent.
It's that urge of English speakers to accent the second syllable.
Actually, they usually get that part right. There are two problems,
though: the first is that they have absolutely no idea what the vowel
values are supposed to be (in particular the long vowels in names like
"Teemu"), and the second is that the Official NHL Spelling does not
distinguish between "a" and "ä" or "o" and "ö", so even someone who
might otherwise know better is left with no indication of the correct
sound. (I wouldn't expect anyone to understand vowel harmony who
hasn't tried to learn a language that has it.)
The result is that the vowel sounds are almost completely wrong, but
in a way that is reasonably predictable if you assume that the
announcers are using English phonics to sound out names that are
misspelled to begin with.
(The International Olympic Committee used to do something just as bad,
if not worse: they would write "ä" and "ö" as "ae" and "oe", as if
they were German. Since "ae" and "oe" are not phonetically precluded
-- although both would induce a syllable boundary since neither is a
permissible diphthong -- You Just Have To Know the unmangled spelling.
Of course, Danish and IIRC Norwegian spell "ä" with a ligature, "æ",
which is even closer in appearance to the German way.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wollman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
.
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