Anglo mis-stressing

[Meredig, John]

This latest thread brings to mind the mnemonic devices in English used
to remember various words and phrases in Russian, such as "Nice
driveway!", "yellow blue tibia", and the infamous "Does your ass fit
ya!" (supposedly taught to American soldiers in the Second World War so
they could greet their Russian allies--say it really fast and it works
passably. I suspect the story may be apocryphal. It sounds too good to
be true--can anyone vouch for its authenticity? I do use it on Day One
of beginning Russian and it never fails to make an impression). 

Perhaps there are more such phrases out there?

John Meredig

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of J.W.
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 2:06 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Anglo mis-stressing

Ottawa (Canada), Friday 11/5/07 14h40 EDT

In response to Mr Braithwaite's comment on the Russian pronunciation of
'Texas', I would say the 'correctness' depends on whether one favours
the American or Mexican point of view.  As with an earlier comment on
the Japanese pronunciation of 'Subaru', when it comes to preserving
original pronunciations, it is the Russians who have the more 'correct'
take on Texas.

My own all-time favourite in this department is some German friends of
mine (new immigrants to Canada) pronouncing the English word 'husband'
as 'Halsband' (a German word meaning, literally, 'throat-collar') -- the
same German friends who insisted that English 'become' must mean the
same as the German word 'bekommen' (acquire), and kept saying that they
were most eager to 'become a car'.

But in terms of adaptation, I think Mr Braithwaite has a good point.
Not even TV journalists, at least while speaking their own language,
should be expected to master foreign phonlogy (though many would argue
that an exception should be made for stress, since that is within most
human beings' capabilities).  On the other hand, I have no problem with
Russians' pronouncing the name of my country as 'ka-NA-da' or even my
own name as 'vuds-VORT', as long as they are speaking Russian.  But if
they are trying to speak English, I feel they should make the effort to
get the stress right, especially after it is pointed out.  A similar
onus, of course, is on English-speakers in their attempts to speak
Russian.

But just think -- if everyone learnt to pronounce all foreign names with
perfect ease, the world might become more politically correct, but at
the same time it would lose a terrific source of humour!

(Mr) John Woodsworth
Certified Translator (Russian-English)
Website: http://www.kanadacha.ca
E-mail: jw at kanadacha.ca / vanya1v at yahoo.com

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