On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 08:26:35AM -0500, Jose Marquez wrote:
> Hi, better late than never...
>
> I never think to correct an American's pronunciation of Spanish; since
> my childhood, I've generally discovered that it's a lost cause . . .
While I agree with Joses note as a whole, I do want to point out that
populations tend to grab foreign place names and make them their own.
Thus we have Versailles (ver-SALES) Indiana, Milan (MI-lan) Michigan,
Amarillo (AM-uh-RILL-o) Texas, and Canton (CAN-tun) Michigan. I don't
know about Amarillo, but the other three were based on locals picking
names of places they're read of, but not heard pronounced. Four languages,
four horrid pronunciations (Canton MI is after Canton China, not the
political subdivisions of Switzerland).
Even tho I'm from Indiana, I'd never heard how the locals pronounce
Versailles. When I got there for a visit and used the anglicized French
pronunciation, they angrily corrected me. Ditto a Texan correcting me
firmly on how Amarillo TX is said.
This isn't strictly an American thing; I vaguely recall bumping
into English words and place-names that have been Spanish-ized or
Japanese-ized.
It's been my experience that most folks do try to pronounce names
correctly -- but sometimes folks names are so butchered by non-native
speakers that they've given up on us round-eyes ever getting it right.
One co-workers native language was (if I recall correctly) a nine-toned
Chinese dialect. Without proper tones, a pronunciation that sounded
very close to Western ears was horribly horribly off to her ears. One
or two of us did manage to get it right if we concentrated and essentially
sang her name. But we couldn't use it in a sentence because English use
of tone conflicted with the requirements of her name, and we either wound
up with sentences that jarred horribly to other Westerners or we got her
name wrong yet again.
After that experience, I settled on calling persons the name they asked
me to, and pronouncing place names as the locals do. But if someone
offers me the opportunity to be courteous and pronounce their name
correctly, I take it with enthusiasm.
--
We were discussing how much illumination the various blinking lights
in the computer room emit:
He: It just keeps getting brighter in there.
Me: If only we did, too.