Friday, March 31, 2006

Muse...

If people can accept the correct pronunciation of the French word "lingerie" to be "lawn-zhe-ray" why can't they accept the correct pronunciation of the French comic character "Tintin" as "tan-tan"?

8 comments:

RongC said...

I guess the usage needs to be accepted with time. Or simply becos the origin of the word wasn't known to alot of ppl. Especially if the etymology is non-Germanic. Not surprised if there are ppl who still pronounce lingerie as it is spelled.

Another reason not to pronounce words as they are spelled. Analogously, no one-to-one correspondence between orthographical representation and phonemic-phonological realisation.

Nick said...

wahahah it was better known off was wan-ton to me wor :P

A little bird atop the canopy said...

I did wish Dr. M did explain to everyone in the band why the name should have been pronounced "tan-tan" (with "a" pronounced like "a" in "art"). Pronouncing the name of such a famous character wrong is a no-no.

Cloud said...

People are brought up in an english speaking society. And people had read the comics of Tintin probably even before they know that the language "French" existed. You can't blame people for pronouncing it the english way.

Likewise, my name is Cloud. My german tutors think that in order to pronounce it as "Cloud", I should spell my name "Claude", the french way. Who is right?

There is no right and wrong in language. If you were brought up and taught that "bull" is pronounced as "bill", and when you learn the proper pronounciation, you aren't going to change overnight and speak it the right way.

Bottomline, these kind of things are very minor. I think you might be much happier leaving them alone. Haha!!! Because really no point making yourself upset over such trivality.

A little bird atop the canopy said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nick said...

Yes Cloudadee....

A little bird atop the canopy said...

I am a little conflicted about this whole pronunciation thing because AFAIK only the Chinese pronounce it as "ding1 ding1" - and we all know how the Chinese have our own ideas of coming up with new words. But that's digressing a little.

Try "Semen Budenny" (a possible way to spell the Cyrillic name of one of the most incompetent Soviet Union Red Army Marshals in the history of the USSR) the way it is spelt above and you'll probably get sniggers all over the place. ;)

Pronouncing the name of a person as it is meant to be pronounced in its original language whenever possible shows a welcome (albeit unusual) understanding and respect for that person and his/her culture.

RongC said...

Perhaps its alright if we are among ourselves and use a system that we are familiar with - as long as we know what we are talking about and communicating our ideas across effectively.

Perhaps, if in the company of native French ppl, it will then be imperative of us to use the correct enunciation (if we know it; we do now...) as a mark of courtesy and respect for their people and their language.

Bottomline: Language can reflect attitudes, but attitudes are not reflected via language only. (Think silent movies of the past, or movies with scenes involving little dialogue - how they communicate ideas across. Of course, language as I refer to here is defined crudely as the meaningful words and sounds that we use to communicate with one another.)