Pronunciation watch

[gurnemanz]

Old joke about a Pole having an eye test:

Optician: Can you read the bottom line?
Pole: Read it? I know him!

[mangerton]

As in Bernard.

Vrrotswahff? A beautiful city, well worth pronouncing correctly (nice opera house) - in my view.

Indeed. Home too to the very ornate aula leopoldina where I sang in 1984. (The year, not the book!)

[Pabmusic]

As in Bernard.

Vrrotswahff? A beautiful city, well worth pronouncing correctly (nice opera house) - in my view.

Very interesting, but it seems it was Breslau from about 1526 to 1945. What then makes Wroclaw the 'correct' name? I suspect it's more because that's what it's known as now. And if that's right, what does that say for the way other words (not place-names) are used? Surely it suggests that current meanings are what matters… Don't tell Pedant's Paradise.

[jean]

Very interesting, but it seems it was Breslau from about 1526 to 1945. What then makes Wroclaw the 'correct' name? I suspect it's more because that's what it's known as now.

Yes, exactly; it has a Polish name now because it's part of Poland. If you refer to is as Breslau, you'll be assumed to be making a political point - it's not like saying Venice instead of Venezia, because as far as I know the British never had any particular claims to that city.

Szczecin too was German until 1945 but I'm told Krushchev was always threatening to give it back to (East) Germany, which is why it was never as lovingly rebuilt as some other Polish cities. So its inhabitants are as bit jumpy even now.

And if that's right, what does that say for the way other words (not place-names) are used?

I don't think there's any real parallel between the political significance of place-names like these and other categories of word.

[french frank]

What then makes Wroclaw the 'correct' name?

Modern UK usage and wont. Why now call it by its German name, any more than we call Warsaw Varsovie just because the French call it that?

Or Kraków Krakau?

[Don Petter]

There was a very strange pronunciation in today's broadcast of 'Facade' from The Cadogan Hall.

Felicity Palmer in the final verse line 'When the phoca has the pica in the palace of the Queen Chinee!' pronounced the last word 'chinny' as if she had never seen it before, which both brought me up short and ruined the final metric emphasis.

Otherwise, always good to hear the work, though, as usual, trying to embellish the words (even a bit of Mummerset at one point) is never an improvement.

[Bryn]

There was a very strange pronunciation in today's broadcast of 'Facade' from The Cadogan Hall.

Felicity Palmer in the final verse line 'When the phoca has the pica in the palace of the Queen Chinee!' pronounced the last word 'chinny' as if she had never seen it before, which both brought me up short and ruined the final metric emphasis.

Otherwise, always good to hear the work, though, as usual, trying to embellish the words (even a bit of Mummerset at one point) is never an improvement.

Indeed! Dead-pan is the way, as Ms. Sitwell rightly insisted.

[vinteuil]

Yes, exactly; it has a Polish name now because it's part of Poland. If you refer to is as Breslau, you'll be assumed to be making a political point - it's not like saying Venice instead of Venezia, because as far as I know the British never had any particular claims to that city.



.

... I agree with Jean that to refer to it - now - as Breslau - wd be provocative or insensitive.

But the English as well as the German word for Wrocław was for a long time Breslau.

We wd not want to change the opening para of "Brugglesmith" -

'THE first officer of the Breslau asked me to dinner on board, before the ship went round to Southampton to pick up her passengers. The Breslau was lying below London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and chains. The Black M’Phee had been putting some finishing touches to his adored engines, and M’Phee is the most tidy of chief engineers. If the leg of a cockroach gets into one of his slide-valves the whole ship knows it, and half the ship has to clean up the mess.'

Jean refers to Szczecin. Is it wrong to continue to think of it as Stettin? One thinks of Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech...







.

[Nick Armstrong]

'Facade'

Pronounced by our American cousins, as Sir William himself pointed out*, Face-Aid !


* during his appearance on 'Faç the Music'

[french frank]

'THE first officer of the Breslau asked me to dinner on board, before the ship went round to Southampton to pick up her passengers. The Breslau was lying below London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and chains.

The Breslau presumably never had its name changed to the Wrocław, and even if it did, the fact that the ship was being described when it was the Breslau should mean that that is what it should be called in that context.

I sense that I am on the Wrong Thread.

Anyway, Wrocław is easy. Rzeszów, Przeworsk, Krzyż , Bydgoszcz and the awful Oświęcim are worse.

[jean]

Jean refers to Szczecin. Is it wrong to continue to think of it as Stettin? One thinks of Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech...

I lived there for several years and yes, I rather think it is. When Churchill made his speech, the city had only just migrated to the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, so nobody would yet have become familiar with its new name.

...Wrocław is easy. Rzeszów, Przeworsk, Krzyż , Bydgoszcz and the awful Oświęcim are worse.

They're not hard, really. Polish pronunciation is absolutely consistent. English people think they can't pronounce szcz especially in an initial position - but we can all say it if the sound is split between two words, as in fresh cheese.

(I got very good at Polish pronunciation - it was just the meaning I couldn't manage.)

[vinteuil]

They're not hard, really. Polish pronunciation is absolutely consistent. English people think they can't pronounce szcz especially in an initial position - but we can all say it if the sound is split between two words, as in fresh cheese.

(I got very good at Polish pronunciation - it was just the meaning I couldn't manage.)

... I know what you mean about Polish pronunciation being 'consistent' - but I was not there long enough to be really confident. I remember when I was based in Warsaw (I can say Warsaw, can I? - I don't need to re-write as Warszawa??... ) always buying tram tickets in clutches of ten, because I was too unsure of the numbers above dziesięć...




.

[french frank]

Polish pronunciation is absolutely consistent.

I agree, really. They just look fearsome and you have to remember what the various accents are.

Amusing that in the days of Solidarność, the British newpapers used to hesitate over whether to print Walesa or Walensa to give the nearest approximation of Wałęsa, since they couldn't manage either the stroke or the ogonek.

[jean]

Really, they'd have been better off writing Vawensa.

Russian is so much easier, since we don't attempt the original Cyrillic but transliterate it into characters we've already got and use them with the values we're familiar with. A Russian colleague of mine had two different versions of her name in Roman characters - Molczanowa if she was writing for Poles, Molchanova if for English-speaking readers.

[Sir Velo]

I sense that I am on the Wrong Thread.

In fact, you could be said to be Poles apart.

Who's got me coat?