PRONUNCIATION OF FOREIGN NAMES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 766, 26 March 1954, Page 5

PRONUNCIATION OF FOREIGN NAMES

Sir,-I would like to draw your attention to a point which has been omitted by almost all correspondents. It is that the actual pronunciation of such names is not the only difficulty encountered by English-speaking people, for the placing of the accent trips them up just as easily. The Spaniard and the Englishman are more often than not at variance when it comes to the placing of the accent on a certain word. In a threesyllable word, for instance, the Englishman may place the accent on the first syllable-the Spaniard on the second. Persons such as I, who were born and lived for many years in a Spanish-speak-ing country, are quite easily tripped up on this point when trying to pronounce Maori names for the first time. Take two simple examples — Totara and Koroki. We _ instinctively place the accent on the second syllable, only to learn from the radio that we are wrong. That is why, very often, an Englishman’s @fforts at Spanish sound quite

ludicrous to one who knows the language well. I do not think there are general rules with regard to placing the accent on certain syllables in Spanish. Some words have changed their accent with the passage of time, but the final authority in such matters is the Real Academia Espanola (Royal Spanish Academy) of Madrid, whose rulings age accepted in Argentina and, I should say, most South American countries. I think the above probably explains why so many announcers go wrong when pronouncing such apparently simple names as, say, Campoli, Casals, etc. The correct is, in the first ‘case, accent on the first syllable, in the second, accent on the last. The NZBS announcers’ version of some of these Latin names is sometimes quite amusing, but for the sake of the public in general, would it not be possible for them to learn to pronounce Bizet, Debussy, Delibes, etc., correctly, ,by placing the emphasis on the last syllable? In my opinion, it is difficult, if not impossible, for an English-speaking person to give the precise version of Spanish and: perhaps other foreign names. Such éfforts would sound harsh and out of place when speaking in a language so soft and musical as English, but announcers should nevertheless be well acquainted with the correct way of pronouncing all foreign names before venturing on the air.

MRS.

T.

R.

Greymouth).

Sir-I agree entirely with P. S. Ardern in his remarks on the mispronunciation of Maori place-names, but the truth is there is no help for it. For the great majority of people the true and exact pronunciation of many Maori names is really a physical, or near physical, impossibility, with the result that these names have to become anglicised. This does not apply in every case. Some names, such as Wairoa, Omata, Ruawai, Awakino, etc., can’t be mispronounced, but the less simple names just have to take their chance. In every country, and in every language in the world, this has always happened. Even in our own .lan- _ guage this sort of thing happens, as in the case of the name of an English country inn, the "Goat and Compasses," for "God Encompasseth Us!" P. S. Ardern is not quite exact in the case of the Maori word Te. It is not "Tay" at all. The e sound is as in the words ten, or Ted, without the final d or n,. "Tay" is a blend of the a in rate and the e in me, a compound of two vowel sounds. Te, in correct Maori speech, is a single, pure vowel sound.

W. T.

MORPETH

' (New Plymouth).