Anglo mis-stressing

Fri May 11 08:16:25 UTC 2007

This is definitely something that affects all cross-cultural relations, and
in both directions.

I've lived in Moscow for nearly 4 years now. My name - Josh Wilson -
although fairly common for an American name, contains two sounds that do not
occur in Russian. The phonetics of my last name are inevitably changed by
Russians who pronounce it "u-ILson" or, heaven forbid "VILson," which is a
linguistic twist I've never really understood (English pronounced with
German rules by a Russian? Strange). 

Add to that that my first name, Josh, is rarely known by Russians and
consists of sounds that are difficult for Russians to naturally put
together. So, their natural speechways morph the name into "George," a name
they are more familiar with and can more easily pronounce. 

What is your name?
Josh 
George! What a great English name! 
No, Josh
Yes, George! Pleased to meet you. 

In many cases, if I don't plan to have a long term relationship with the
person, I just let them think my name is George. If I will have a long term
relationship with them, I go through the explanation of the name Josh, that
it is different from George, derived from the Hebrew... blah blah blah, and
please don't confuse me with my president. Only then do they seem to be able
to see the difference, but they still usually poorly pronounce the name,
usually as something like "Dzhush." 

So, while I send Ms. SharaPOva my condolences, I agree with Mr. Braitvait.
Best just to accept that fact that vast majority of people in a foreign
country will not be able to "properly" pronounce your name because all
speechways are unique and difficult to change. If you want people to
properly pronounce it every time, you will have to individually educate each
foreigner - and not always with success. 

Best, 

Dzhush VILson
Asst. Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor-in-Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
www.sras.org
jwilson at sras.org

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Kim Braithwaite
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 7:06 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Anglo mis-stressing

Several of Mr Gallagher's in-depth linguistic points are well taken. I do 
think calling natural speechways "ignorance" is going too far. I don't buy 
the notion that speakers of English ought to reproduce every phonological 
nicety of foreign names when speaking English.

While interacting with Russians and Georgians in Tbilisi, I found it 
perfectly natural and acceptable that they pronounced my surname with a 
"tapped r" instead of the correct retroflex r, or a plain or aspirated t 
instead of the correct interdental th, or a v instead of the correct w. They

were, after all, speaking Russian and Georgian. (I did point out during one 
interview - with wry intent - that the correct pronunciation of Texas is 
TEK-suss rather than teh-KHASS. They got the joke).

Russian names aside, consider Chinese. Does anyone think that English 
speakers (whether journalists or layfolk) should be obliged to master the 
intricacies of the tones? A wrong tone on a Chinese name or ordinary word, 
as everyone knows, may not only sound strange but could cause serious 
misunderstanding and even offense - when speaking Chinese. When speaking 
English, I say live with it.

My sympathies to Mr Koulbass. Sixty years adds up to a lot of anguish.

Mr Kim Braithwaite, Translator

   "Good is better than evil, because it's nicer" - Mammy Yokum (Al Capp)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM>
To: <SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 6:32 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Anglo mis-stressing

> George Kalbouss wrote:
>
>> The discussion on the pronunciation of Kluev has led me to wonder out
>> loud about a phenomenon that I have been patiently putting up with
>> lo these 60 years, namely, how Anglo-speakers seem to have a talent
>> to rarely guess where the stress should go on a Russian name.
>>
>> Some of the worst mis-stresses I can figure out. MiKHAIL becomes 
>> "Mick-HALE" because it looks like that, and DACHa is stressed
>> correctly but the pronunciation is DAKHA (not the way the word
>> actually looks) because an analogy, for some unknown reason, is made
>> with the concentration camp, Dachau.
>
> I've never heard anyone say "Dakha"; maybe I should get out more. Or maybe

> not.
>
>> Others, however, make me wonder -- and perhaps some linguist colleagues 
>> can help out -- is there an overriding principle in the
>> English language or culture why this butchering is done? Some of the
>> more common examples:
>
> If you're looking for psychological motivations, the top two have to be 
> laziness and ignorance. For the general public, I'd say ignorance tops the

> list -- if you don't know Russian, you haven't got a clue. For the news 
> media, it has to be laziness -- if you're standing there interviewing 
> someone and you don't bother to listen to how they say their name, or even

> ask, you have no excuse.
>
> Be that as it may, what do naive monolinguals do when confronted with a 
> foreign name? I'd say they try to apply their native stress rules and/or 
> find one or more similar-sounding words and stress them like that. Since 
> English is a mélange of words from languages with different stress 
> patterns (Germanic with initial stress except for prefixes, French with 
> final stress, Latin with penultimate or antepenultimate stress, etc.), we 
> end up with a very complicated set of rules and patterns to try.
>
> My guesses on the specific names you mention:
>
>> VLAdimir
>
> VL- is foreign and attracts stress; also the Germans have initial stress 
> on Wladimir.
>
>> PavLOVa
>> SharaPOva (she finally gave in and said, ok, that's my name)
>
> There seems to be a pattern of stressing -Ova/-Eva in Slavic names even 
> when that would be completely inappropriate in the source language (Polish

> immigrant substratum?). For example, Navrátilová with initial stress and 
> long vowels in the second and fifth syllables mysteriously gets primary 
> stress on the first and fourth syllables -- obviously because people have 
> only seen it, never heard it. The one in this pattern (other than 
> Share-u-POE-vuh) that bugs me lately is Dementi-YAY-vuh. And of course 
> there's the model who fancies herself a tennis player (who shall remain 
> nameless).
>
>> Ki-EV
>
> To keep the syllables separate? (IE normally spells /i/, and I do often 
> hear "Chicken KI-ev").
>
>> TOLstoy
>
> Germanic initial stress?
>
>> LerMONTov  (I doubt the pronouncers have heard of Learmont)
>
> Never heard this one; wild guessing that a heavy syllable attracts stress.
>
>> KHRUSHchev
>> TURD-jenev
>
> Germanic initial stress?
>
>> LeNEEN, StaLEEN  (yes, despite the notoriety of these names)
>
> Never heard either of these, but if you listen to hockey games on radio/TV

> you'll hear a lot of Swedish names ending with /in/, so maybe that's what 
> they're imitating.
>
>> StolichNAYA  (the escape route is STOLi,  not StoLI).
>
> Americans seem to favor stress on -Aya; cf. SlutsKAya, ButyrsKAya, etc.
>
>> In exasperation, I tell my Anglo speakers, just decide where you want
>> to put the stress and then move it one to the right. If you think the
>> stress should go on the last syllable, then put it on the first. At
>> least I increase the probablity of getting it right.
>>
>> As a consolation, they get BLOK and TVER right the first time.
>
> Cute.
>
>> Then, there's Nemerovich-Danchenko,  Dnepropetrovsk and Petrodvorets.--  
>> maybe we're asking too much.
>
> To paraphrase the prince in /Amadeus/, "too many consonants, couldn't you 
> manage with less"? ;-)
>
> -- 
> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
> --
> Paul B. Gallagher
> pbg translations, inc.
> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
> http://pbg-translations.com
>
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