'kimono' pronun & use

[Wilson Gray]

On Jun 23, 2005, at 2:34 PM, Laurence Urdang wrote:

>
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Urdang <urdang at SBCGLOBAL.NET>
> Subject:      Re: 'kimono' pronun & use
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>
> Prominent among names in America are those that originated in Polish,
> German, Italian, etc. Some of the people bearing them have changed
> their spellings to conform to the way they are pronounced in America,
> others have kept their spellings and conformed their pronunciations to
> the way American speakers say them, still others have been successful
> in "forcing" American speakers to approximate their native
> pronunciations. I know people named Schwarz who pronounce their name
> SHWOARTS; I know people named Castagno who pronounce their name
> kuhSTAGno (and who say moDIGleeAHno for the artist); and we all have
> heard how Schiavo is almost universally pronounced SHYvo instead of
> skeeAHvo (or SKYAHvo). Zbigniew Brzinsky seems to have got by
> unscathed. In Europe (including England), my name is usually
> pronounced the way we do in the family, ERRdang; but in America, the
> initial pronunciation of choice is usually YOORdang. The common Polish
> name Kowalsky is usually pronounced koWAHLskee (as !
> in
>  "Stanley ---"), and if its "owner" wants to hear it in an
> approximation of its native pronunciation, all he need do is change
> the spelling to Kovalsky. Virtually any German or Slavic name with a W
> in medial or syllable-initial position has a V sound in the original,
> but we continually encounter WURner for VURner, etc. I know a woman
> named Veronica who spells it Weronica because she was brought up in
> Germany; that's fine for viva voce introductions, but must invariably
> result in a curious pronunciation should someone read it from written
> matter.
> We all know all that---and a lot more besides---so I find it curious
> that a member would believe that the original, native pronunciation,
> especially the vowel sound, so volatile and, often, inimitable, of a
> word or name would be of any importance except to the "owner" of the
> name or to the pedant seeking, for example, to roll the R's in every
> Italian or Spanish word.
> We have all seen what became of Latin pronunciation subjected to
> French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese influences and how, for
> instance, the surname of the great fado singer, Amalia Rodriguez, was
> pronounced with a final S or Z sound except by those who knew she was
> Portuguese and used the SH sound.
> With the decline of family culture and the rise of semiliteracy in
> America, the traditional pronunciations have given way to spelling
> pronunciations. I don't care how people pronounce a given word, as
> long as I can understand what they mean. But I cannot deny that their
> pronunciation Van WICK (for Van "WIKE") Expressway in NYC, their
> saying JORuhLEMin for juhROLuhmin Street in Brooklyn, and scores of
> other ways of saying things marks them at once.
> L. Urdang
>

Then you'll be able to commiserate with a friend of mine of Flemish
ancestry named "van Eeckhoutte," whose name in American pronunciation
has become "VANNacut."

-Wilson Gray