Re: aranold

In article <s7qun41q68kvurtseglsnjttnq8d3l913g@xxxxxxx>, mm <NOPSAMmm2005@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
Looking for a place to attach my comment.

The World Service of the BBC broadcasts mostly USA news where I hear
it, on public radio stations starting at 11PM or midnight. For months
and months it has been pronouncing the candidate's name as BEARick
Obama, like the singular of the word barracks, where soldiers live,
first syllable like a bear who lives in the woods.

I found it amazing, in a world with television and radio and
telephone, that they assumed the pronunciation of his name based
apparently on its spelling, and ignored how he and all Americans
pronounced it.

Only since the election have they been, gradually it seems, changing
to using his own pronunciation.

Why not call her Queen ElizABETH, with the stress on ABETH? Because
she doesn't say it that way.

More to follow.

On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:34:22 +0000 (UTC), "meir b."
<meir251@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
And for those who know New York: if you need directions to
Houston Street in lower Manhattan, you'd better pronounce it "house-
ton," or you're likely to get a blank stare. Poor English teaching?
No. The early immigrants who lived there pronounced it as they saw
it.

Are you saying the original pronunciation of the street name was that
of Sam Houston? And that the immigrants managed to change an
established pronunciation?

What about Goethe in Chicago, pronounced GO thee (th as in thistle)?
(And I keep thinking there is one other in Chicago.)

The same dynamic is what leads there to be a street in Jerusalem
named Linkolen, named for the sixteenth U.S. president.

I see an argument for leaving out the second lamed, but all in all I
think it is better to keep it. That way Israelis will have less
trouble spelling his hame even if they have a lot more trouble saying
it as Americans or maybe all English speakers do.

OTOH, in Spanish, they'll respell the whole name so that when
pronunced according to simple Spanish rules, it sounds like what it
did in the original language. Hence, Chaim becomes Jaim, I think, or
maybe in practice Jaime. Then later when Cubans move to the US, there
is a tendency I think to call themselve Jaimie, with an English J.


Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem has a special 3 year residency
program in ophthalmology for selected interns from Mexico and Ecuador
[the usual residency for Israelis is 5 years]. Way back in 1987, I
(internal medicine) was doing some work in the glaucoma unit of
the ophthalmology dept. We had made a major treatment breakthrough
and presented this at the Israeli Medical Association bi-annual conference
in 1987. 5 of the Mexican residents were in the room when I presented my
lecture. One was Jaime [excuse my ignorance but even I thought the J was
pronounced]. Each doc gets a badge with his name on it. The woman
heard his name and promptly wrote CHAIM (in Hebrew).

There are about 30 people attending the lecture. I see Jaime wearing
his triple crucifix and see his nametag (CHAIM) and simply burst out
laughing :-)







I feel that the criticism of the Israeli pronunciation is no more
nor less than linguistic chauvinism.

Mei



Josh

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: aranold
    ... on public radio stations starting at 11PM or midnight. ... and months it has been pronouncing the candidate's name as BEARick ... that they assumed the pronunciation of his name based ... Poor English teaching? ...
    (soc.culture.jewish.moderated)
  • Re: Latin pronunciation puzzle
    ... > 1) Zaglossus attenboroughi ... I think the realistic approach is that the pronunciation of scientific names ... > justified by the Middle English burw, ... The logical, though not always practical, approach to pronouncing words like ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: OT Gaelic Pronunciation
    ... How is the Gaelic word "Claddagh" (as in "Claddagh Ring") pronounced? ... We'd all be pronouncing words identically. ... There are different pronunciations, and the futility of worrying about what was the 'right' pronunciation has been gone over in this newsgroup in the past. ... It's genealogically relevant because a word pronounced by an illiterate informant in one accent will likely be written down with a different spelling by a recorder with a different accent, and hence the plasticity of names when it comes to searching. ...
    (soc.genealogy.britain)
  • Re: Pronunciation Guide
    ... American English speaker pronouncing "London" with a British ... American pronunciation of "London". ...
    (rec.music.classical.recordings)