Renaming the cities of other countries... (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Renaming the cities of other countries...
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

192 messages over 24 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 23 24 Next >>

vonPeterhof
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Message 177 of 192

27 September 2012 at 2:51pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

I've heard the Russian name Ivan pronounced /aivn/. Such approach does not seem logical
even to English native speakers either.

For a long time I thought that this pronunciation was a completely separate name of a British origin, perhaps related to the Welsh Evan or Ifan (both equivalents to John). When I first heard this pronunciation it was in the name of the Canadian director Ivan Reitman, so I assumed that it had nothing to do with the Slavic name (except later I found out that he was born in Slovakia). But then I heard Ivan the Terrible referred to with that pronunciation, so...
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Марк
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Message 178 of 192

27 September 2012 at 3:08pm | IP Logged

Why is "i" used for Russian "и"? It is as if we would use к for French "f", for example.
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Марк
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Message 179 of 192

27 September 2012 at 3:14pm | IP Logged

About Irish. Modern Irish is unlucky: it is transcribed through English (Шин Фейн instead
of Щинь Фень), while Old Irish deserved its own system of transcription/transliteration.
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Марк
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Message 180 of 192

27 September 2012 at 5:40pm | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

Why is "i" used for Russian "и"? It is as if we would use к for French "f",
for example.

Maybe the name entered the English language when the great vowel shift was alive and was
doomed to be changed.
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Serpent
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Message 181 of 192

27 September 2012 at 7:35pm | IP Logged

It puzzles me so much that for many people there doesn't seem to be any "default" pronunciation of letters. The practical transciption like "mah-REE-nah" for Marina seems MAD to me :P It's already written the way it's pronounced, just switch off your English filter!

Edited by Serpent on 27 September 2012 at 7:36pm
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Josquin
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Message 182 of 192

27 September 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged

@Марк: I'm fascinated by the fact that you now conduct a monologue even without other people interceding. Don't know if that's the purpose of a discussion forum though. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but it get's a bit annoying if one person is obsessed with some idée fixe.

English orthography is very illogical, and Russian names are no exception to this. The short "i" is the closest single vowel in English to Russian и, so I guess that's the reason for transliterating it this way. Even though long "i" doesn't sound like и at all.

I seriously ask you to get over the fact that English orthography is illogical. Pronouncing foreign names correctly is difficult for anyone who doesn't speak the specific language. You just don't know how Russian, French, English, Polish, Spanish, Italian,... names are mutilated in German or other languages.

I just heard some anecdotes about Japanese pronunciation of English words at work. Did you know they pronounce McDonald's "maku donarudo"? Haven't seen an Englishman complain about that in this forum though.

EDIT @Serpent: How are people supposed to "switch off their English filter" if English is the only language they have learnt to read and write? That's like asking a Russian to "switch of his Cyrillic filter". The word "Marina" wouldn't be pronounced "mah-REE-nah" if it were an English word, hence the need for a transcription.

Edited by Josquin on 27 September 2012 at 8:33pm
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tastyonions
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Message 183 of 192

27 September 2012 at 11:11pm | IP Logged

Serpent wrote:

José Mourinho is usually pronounced as dʒoʊze(i) in English... although they have no problems with the ʒ in words like pleasure. Does it make such a huge difference that it's word-initial???

Well, we say "ʒ" at the start of "Jacques", so I'm not sure what happened. :-P
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Serpent
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Message 184 of 192

28 September 2012 at 12:27am | IP Logged

Josquin wrote:

EDIT @Serpent: How are people supposed to "switch off their English filter" if English is the only language they have learnt to read and write? That's like asking a Russian to "switch of his Cyrillic filter". The word "Marina" wouldn't be pronounced "mah-REE-nah" if it were an English word, hence the need for a transcription.

IDK, to me the default values of the Latin vowels have nothing to do with their English pronunciation, perhaps because I learned the alphabet at a very young age way before actually starting to learn the language. And okay, I admit most Russians would pronounce Ukrainian or Serbian with our vowel reduction if they're not learning the language, but that's more of a pronunciation issue. It's damn hard to produce an unstressed o and not change it if your language normally changes it. I do hope that I can pronounce anything written in the Cyrillics with the Russian filter off - the main problems would be of course special characters and some rules that I'd not be aware of.

I basically don't like the names of vowels in the alphabet, haha. If a remained aaaaa, there would be no need for those "a as in father" descriptions. after all, it IS a common pronunciation of the letter. But of course, let's just call it æeei and pronounce it this way whenever we see it, even in foreign names... Doesn't make sense at all to me.

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