Of names, emigration & pronunciation...

[SckizoBoy]

Random thought for the day... (from the monster room-mate thread).

I wrote 'Mike Wazowski' (little green cyclops from Monsters Inc. for those who can't remember).

Now, question: how do you pronounce 'Wazowski'? I guess most would pronounce as 'wa-ZOW-ski', as it's written, but since it's a Silesian-esque name, I immediately thought 'va-ZOV-ski', which is how Poles and Germans would pronounce it, whether in their own language or not.

So, here's a question which probably has no bearing on anything at all: if a name is not linguistically tied to the nationality of the person who uses said name, what is the correct way of pronouncing it? Context permitted...

I suppose in my case, I'm sort of obliged to change the pronunciation of my name depending on which language I speak (English/Cantonese, and if I want to be a smart-arse, my traditional text name has a distinct pronunciation in Japanese as well), so... eh...

 

[Colour Scientist]

I pronounce it the first way you mentioned.
I suppose the correct way to pronounce a name is the way the individual pronounces it.
In Monster's Inc it's the Americanised version of the name so that's how it should be pronounced.


It pains me to say it considering all of the silly Americanised versions of Irish names bother me but the pronunciation should be down to the individual.

 

[klown]

How it is pronounced is what ever way the person says it should be. If the name is polish, pronounce it like it's polish. So for your example, how ever the movie does, is the way it should be.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I pronounce it "Waz-OH-ski", because that's how people roll in Spanish-speaking countries and pronouncing it any other way would make me an elitist jerk.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The correct way to pronounce it is whatever way the person whose name it is pronounces it. It's a name, not a word.

 

[madwarper]

What is the correct pronunciation of "-stein"? -shtine or -shteen?

The correct pronunciation of a person's name is as they pronounce it.

Spoiler: Relevant

My family's surname has a similar ei vowel, and since we're of German ancestry, we emphasis the 'I' over the 'E'.

 

[sextus the crazy]

What is the correct pronunciation of "-stein"? -shtine or -shteen?

The correct pronunciation of a person's name is as they pronounce it.

Spoiler: Relevant

My family's surname has a similar ei vowel, and since we're of German ancestry, we emphasis the 'I' over the 'E'.

It's shtine. In german, diphthongs pronounce the second letter. Hence, Heil & Stein are I, Krieg and Bier are E. However, once you've been displaced into 'Murica, people change. More Americanized Generations pronounce it differently than their 1st gen immigrant ancestors do.

 

[badgersprite]

Yeah, as people have said, it's how the person themselves want it to be pronounced, because that's what they consider their name.

 

[uzo]

I have a French name. I'm not going to say it here, but it's something akin to "Dubois".

I live in Australia however, a land known for its colourful yet unsophisticated language. Allow me to illustrate with an example from my own life: a friend at university (we were at Wagga) had gone to the train station to get a countrylink ticket for himself, and I'd given him cash to get one for me too (we were both heading back to Sydney).

Friend: One ticket for me ...
Station Master: Name?
Friend: Smith, S-M-I-T-H. And one for my friend...
Station Master:: Name?
Friend: Dubois, D-U-B-O-I-S.
Station Master: *pauses* Looks like Dew-boys to me. *grumble*

The funny thing was that I lived in Japan for a long time, and I could write my name in katakana the vast majority of the time, so the Japanese have better pronunciation of my name than my countrymen. I answer to "Dew-boys", however. It's too much of a pain in the arse to go through life correcting every mistake.

 

[Goofguy]

Yeah, people get my last name wrong all of the time. It doesn't help that it's pronounced differently in the two languages I speak let alone in its original language. I used to be pretty militant on correcting people, now I've just stopped caring. They'll learn when they either ask me how to correctly pronounce it or hear me use it myself.

 

[Nomadiac]

It's their name, and you should pronounce it like they want you to pronounce it, if for nothing other than respect.
That said, if it's left up to me I'll usually go for something approaching the initial language's pronunciation (so va-ZOV-ski for Wazowski). Within limits, though. If their first name's 'Llewellyn' I won't humiliate myself by trying to do the Welsh 'll' and failing.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I pronounce it Wazowski, if nothing else because that's how I remember it's pronounced in the film. Not that I know you at all, but a lot of people that I've met who attempt to pronounce foreign names properly tend to be terribly pretentious. It's best to just pronounce it however seems normal rather than question it and draw attention to the whole deal.

 

[Saregon]

Try having a name containing letters that don't exist in the English alphabet. My last name has the letter å in it, and I have yet to meet a person with English as their first language who can pronounce it. Hell, even if I tell them how, many still won't be able to. For the record, it's like the a in "all".

Although in general I go with whatever pronunciation he/she uses.

 

[Shinsei-J]

Friend: One ticket for me ...
Station Master: Name?
Friend: Smith, S-M-I-T-H. And one for my friend...
Station Master:: Name?
Friend: Dubois, D-U-B-O-I-S.
Station Master: *pauses* Looks like Dew-boys to me. *grumble*

Spoiler: Totally relevant

Totally relevant

OT: Correct is up to them in my eyes.
What they go by is what they choose, if what they choose is pronounced differently then that's how it goes.
Though for the case of Monsters Inc. it's simply how it was said in the movie, "Wa-zow-ski".

 

[Little Woodsman]

I don't care how people pronounce my last name--when I'm asked how it's pronounced I usually say "I pronounce it 'bonehead',you may pronounce it however you like".
What bugs me is that many, many people seem to like to speculate on my ancestry because of it--with wild inaccuracy.
Everyone seems to think that the name is of French origin (it's American-ized Italian), and I've never seen a French
name even vaguely like it....

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The funny thing was that I lived in Japan for a long time, and I could write my name in katakana the vast majority of the time, so the Japanese have better pronunciation of my name than my countrymen.

Pfffft. That's because when your write a foreign word in katakana you're supposed to do it phonetically not approximate the spelling... because '-ois(u)' isn't going to get you a 'wa' from the Japanese any more than it is from the average Aussie.

 

[Johnny Impact]

The right way to say it is the way the person themselves says it.

Working customer service for a long time has exposed me to hundreds of surnames, maybe thousands. This has given me pretty good pronunciation of foreign-sounding names. People are surprised when I read a name like Strbac, Theriault, Chevalier, Sienkiewicz, Chretien, Splettstoesser off a paper with correct pronunciation. They are even more surprised when they say the name and I know how to spell it.

You can't always guess pronunciation. For example, the French pronunciation of Chretien is something like khret-ee-eh, it's hard to render in English. The Americanized version is KREE-shen. Either is right, it's just a choice. However, if you have a funky name, you need to accept that most people will get it wrong the first time.

I have a different problem. My name is common, and easy to say, but has several possible spellings. People always choose the wrong one.

 

[LongAndShort]

I'm falling in with the whole "it's how they pronounce it" crowd.

Mind you that can be a challenge in and of itself. Not that long ago at work (bank teller) they'd let loose 'mystery shoppers' (random people who'd score us against a list of criteria) upon our branches. One of the things we'd have to do to get a good score is say a customer's name three times. I'll tell you what, after mangling a few fifteen letter names from the Mediterranean or the Indian subcontinent you begin to despise vibrant multiculturalism. At least Greeks and Indians tend to spell their names in English how they're pronounced, unlike those bloody Eastern Europeans. I hate their names so much...

 

[DoPo]

At least Greeks and Indians tend to spell their names in English how they're pronounced, unlike those bloody Eastern Europeans. I hate their names so much...

Well, in their defence, they do spell their names as they are pronounced. Just English doesn't follow...good pronunciation rules. It's easier to do in German. Heck, it's incredibly easy in German. German language outdoes English...that's not something I say every day.

 

[LongAndShort]

At least Greeks and Indians tend to spell their names in English how they're pronounced, unlike those bloody Eastern Europeans. I hate their names so much...

Well, in their defence, they do spell their names as they are pronounced. Just English doesn't follow...good pronunciation rules. It's easier to do in German. Heck, it's incredibly easy in German. German language outdoes English...that's not something I say every day.

Hey, no argument here about how great German is. I love German. The handful of words I know are fantastic. Great language.

But in English's defence, it isn't English's fault that people wanna shoehorn their own grammatical rules within its structure instead of spelling them phonetically (taking a hint at the constant mispronunciation of their names by people who have grown up within that structure).

Still, German is great.