Pronunciation watch

[Roger Webb]

My feeling is that other countries can do what they please with their own and other countries' names. The important thing is that, in the UK, people understand which country or city is being referred to.

We live just about on the Wales/England border, I'm English, my wife Welsh, and Welsh speaking - she didn't start to use English until she went to school at age four (she's made remarkable progress since, tee-hee)

Some of the place names we encounter flummox her...Sir Fynwy?...a nobleman living in his castle on the Welsh side? No, it's Monmouthshire. Tre Fynwy being Monmouth town. No-one she has ever met calls them thus. Y Fenni is just confusing. It means the river Fenni, but it also means Abergavenny....but hold on Aber is mouth-of, and used in prefixes for Welsh names all over Wales. Abergavenny is what it is called by all Welsh speakers, meaning town at the mouth of the river Fenni (spelt with an F but pronounced V, hence the corruption in the place name).

Bannau Brycheiniog anyone? My wife's father, a Welsh speaker all his life - we used to meet his fellow farmers in his 'regular' in Ystradfellte, they always spoke Welsh, but made an effort to humour me with a little English on my visits. My wife is from Cwmtwrch, this is what it is called by everyone.....not a name made-up in a zealots office in Cardiff (Caerdydd! But no one calls it that) - not even a zealot in an office in the Capitol.

BTW it's largely believed the 20 mph speed limit was introduced so motorists have time to read the confusing roadsigns on entering a village with which they were unfamiliar.

[french frank]

... there are times when the change of name has political implications (cf Persia / Iran, Cambodia/Kampuchea/Cambodia). The change of name by the incoming junta in Burma was one such, and I was surprized by the rapidity with which the change was adopted in Britain, given our dislike of almost everything else the junta was doing

I quite agree the changes are very often political - and that applies to Roger's Welsh examples. I belonged to an international acdemic society which had a contingent of Welsh members. I felt they were quite aggressive about 'Welshness' - and I do value the Welshness I inherited from my great-grandmother, did medieval Welsh as part of a post-grad course and did a crash course in modern Welsh as part of my ancestor worship research. But I could never be part of the 'professional Welsh' clan.

The problem comes, as in Wales, when imposed changes confuse even fellow countrymen. As Churchill (or GBS) might have remarked: "A single country divided by two languages."

[smittims]

I think it was Churchill, who said when General Slim captured Rangoon,' at last they're in a place whose name I can pronounce!'

[Ein Heldenleben]

It happens as a result of lobbying by the countries concerned who usually play the “ex-colonial” card . And the organisations they lobby are the Foreign Office and the BBC.Once the high-ups say it’s Bejing then every one has to fall into line. Of course democracies like France don’t care that we mispronounce Paris or say Vienna rather than Wien. I’ve no idea why the BBC always caves in - I’d love to know . Needless to say you can’t hear the BBC in China as it’s jammed so agreeing to Beijing rather than Peking is yet another example of this country’s lack of self belief. And Starmer honestly thinks we can keep the peace in Ukraine. It’s laughable .

[gurnemanz]

I think it was Churchill, who said when General Slim captured Rangoon,' at last they're in a place whose name I can pronounce!'

On occasion, when about to launch into my rusty French, I like to quote Churchill's "Prenez garde, je vais parler français!”

[smittims]

One way of avoiding pronunciation problems is to say everything in English translation. I've noticed recently on Radio 3 that more and more french and german titles of works are being given in English, so I suspect this is a management decision. .

[oddoneout]

One way of avoiding pronunciation problems is to say everything in English translation. I've noticed recently on Radio 3 that more and more french and german titles of works are being given in English, so I suspect this is a management decision. .

Which comes adrift somewhat in terms of usefulness to a listener if the English version is unfamiliar. There isn't always agreement either on what exactly the translation should be; Akademie fur Alte Musik I've heard rendered as Academy for Ancient Music more than once.
It's a poor solution in my view, not least as the online availability of translations means that English versions can be accessed easily, but the subtext(even if not intentional) I don't like much - seems like reinforcing the view that languages are too hard to bother with. It's noticeable that that doesn't seem to be the line taken by the online stations some of us listen to - I find the Finnish very good in terms of both clarity of the spoken information, and the correctness of non-Finnish elements.

[Roger Webb]

................... I find the Finnish very good in terms of both clarity of the spoken information..….......

Yes, the AI-sounding announcer on YLE can even manage Atterberg - a feat totally beyond anyone at the BBC!

[LMcD]

That would make Beethoven's Opus 106 the 'Early Piano With Strings Hammered By Small Hammers' sonata.
'L'Enfant Et Les Sortilèges' and 'Waldeinsamkeit' could also prove tricky.
'Women Are Like That' as a translation of 'Cosi Fan Tutte' could lead to charges of misogyny.

[Alain Maréchal]

On occasion, when about to launch into my rusty French, I like to quote Churchill's "Prenez garde, je vais parler français!”

“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”

― P.G. Wodehouse, The Luck of the Bodkins

[Alain Maréchal]

Yes, the AI-sounding announcer on YLE can even manage Atterberg - a feat totally beyond anyone at the BBC!

How does it cope with Hugo Alfvén, or, come to think of it, Peder Severin Krøyer?

[Roger Webb]

How does it cope with Hugo Alfvén, or, come to think of it, Peder Severin Krøyer?

Well I don't speak (or understand....apart from the basics) any Scandinavian language, but I do have an idea how proper nouns are meant to be pronounced. Of course a Finn will probably have the upper hand over the average (and many are extremely average!) BBC Radio 3 announcer. The problem I have is they don't even try to get it right......and not only Scandinavian composers - listen to the way Ginastera is rendered...the only time I heard it correctly given was in an interview with Gabriela Montero....only to be mangled with a misplaced fake Spanish rendition by the announcer before the work was played.

[Master Jacques]

I've noticed recently on Radio 3 that more and more french and german titles of works are being given in English, so I suspect this is a management decision. .

I suppose this is one way to address the daily embarrassment caused by most presenters' monolingual limitations.

I noticed it myself for the first time yesterday, when a movement from La Mer (the presenter just about managed that) was introduced as "the dialogue of the wind and waves". It seems that, since the BBC's pronunciation department was closed down, if a presenter can get a foreign word wrong, they will get it wrong, so best use the English instead, probably Google-translated.

Can I look forward to the moment when this shameful insularity at least results in operas being sung over the air in English? Dream on! for that old snobbery at least will be allowed to persist, till the island sinks into the sea. Opera has to be elitist you see, and ideally nobody should be able to understand a word of it.

[Ein Heldenleben]

On occasion, when about to launch into my rusty French, I like to quote Churchill's "Prenez garde, je vais parler français!”

Despite his execrable accent were the most important and historic words ever spoken by an Englishman to the French these ?
“Francais ! C’est moi Churchill qui vous parle ….” Etc etc

Sometimes the meaning is more important than the delivery .

[LMcD]

I suppose this is one way to address the daily embarrassment caused by most presenters' monolingual limitations.

I noticed it myself for the first time yesterday, when a movement from La Mer (the presenter just about managed that) was introduced as "the dialogue of the wind and waves". It seems that, since the BBC's pronunciation department was closed down, if a presenter can get a foreign word wrong, they will get it wrong, so best use the English instead, probably Google-translated.

Can I look forward to the moment when this shameful insularity at least results in operas being sung over the air in English? Dream on! for that old snobbery at least will be allowed to persist, till the island sinks into the sea. Opera has to be elitist you see, and ideally nobody should be able to understand a word of it.

'The Sea' was written by Frank Bridge, and 'La Mer' by Claude Debussy (and Charles Trenet).
Edward Heath's spoken French was arguably no better than Churchill's.