the BBC has spoken

[Michele A. Berdy]

I caught this on JRL:

BBC
March 5, 2008
How to say: Dmitry Medvedev
An occasional guide to the words and names in the 
news from Martha Figueroa-Clark of the BBC Pronunciation Unit.

After recording a landslide victory, Dmitry 
Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's chosen successor, has 
been elected President of Russia.

The pronunciation of Medvedev's name presents 
quite a challenge to English speakers, as Hillary 
Clinton demonstrated when prompted to say the 
name on MSNBC recently (which you can watch here).

As media coverage of the elections has shown, 
several pronunciations are already in use among 
British broadcasters, including muhd-VAY-dev and 
MED-vuh-dev (the latter is considered incorrect).

The Pronunciation Unit's recommendation is 
DMEET-ri muhd-VYED-uhff (-uh as in the; -vy as in 
view; the final 'v' is devoiced so it sounds like 
'f') but it was a challenge for us to decide 
exactly how we should render this name in English 
and, before we could decide on a definitive 
recommendation, we had to consider the following factors:

-the native Russian pronunciation (which sounds 
close to myid-VYED-yiff; -my as in mute; -vy as in view)
-the extent to which this name is likely be 
anglicised by non-native speakers of Russian 
(since his name will undoubtedly crop up frequently)
-ease of production (will it be pronounceable in 
English?) and ease of perception (will it be 
clear to our audience who it is our broadcasters are talking about?)
as well as
-consistency - all of our advice incorporates 
systematic Anglicisations which are based on our 
knowledge of the phonology of the language in question.

The above are just some examples of the issues we 
regularly have to consider when forming recommendations.

In the case of Medvedev, we have had to 
compromise: we cannot expect non-Russians to 
pronounce this name in a perfectly Russian way 
because this would require broadcasters to have 
detailed knowledge of Russian pronunciation, which is not feasible.

Having carried out detailed research and 
consulted with Russian speakers, including a 
Russian phonetician, we concluded that correct 
stress placement and reflection of the soft 
(palatalised) 'v' in the stressed syllable were 
the most important aspects to highlight in our anglicised pronunciation.

The surname Medvedev stems from the Russian word 
for 'bear' medved' (with stress on the second 
syllable), so that it is important to retain this 
stress in the surname, hence our recommendation muhd-VYED-uhff.

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