gusl: (Default)
[personal profile] gusl
When using one's name in a foreign language, it is common to change:

* phonetics, to be easier to parse (so that others will get the correct spelling). Interesting cross-alphabet case: most people named "Artem" introduce themselves as [artem], rather than [artjom].
* spelling, to look more standard (grey area when different alphabets are involved)
* the name altogether (many Chinese do this; sometimes one intentionally chooses a similar name e.g. "Sin-Ting" becomes "Cindy", "Ke-Min" becomes "Kevin", "Yi-Lan" becomes "Elaine")

I think people tend to be more attached to written form of their names than to the phonetics (which is often hopeless anyway!), and this makes sense especially if you want to avoid red tape.

I seem to err on the side of authenticism in phonetics, and in English I say my name almost exactly as I do in my dialect of Northeast Brazilian Portuguese: [guʃtávw], often with a slightly mumbled first syllable. This baffles some people, and leads to lots of errors: "Mustafa" and "Kristafo" seem to happen equally often (maybe 10% of the time altogether). Almost half the time, people don't hear the last vowel: "Gustav".

Anglophones who have never seen my name before often say [gʌstejvo] or [gʌstavo]. I am perfectly happy with [gustavo] (which is what most people say at first sight, and it's how São Paulo folks pronounce it), but if you are Hungarian or Schwäbisch, saying [guʃtavo] may come naturally and will put a smile on my face. If you are Romanian, [gustavu] may be natural for you. Anglophones, please don't try too hard.

(Thanks to http://ipa.typeit.org/)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-18 06:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_tove/
I have a mainland-Chinese friend named Cheng, who pronounces her name (as far as I can tell, and she tells me I pronounce her name correctly, although I almost certainly don't get the tone right) as "Chung." It seems to me that the "Cheng" transliteration strongly encourages the incorrect pronunciation "Chang," at least to native English speakers.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-18 06:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gustavolacerda.livejournal.com
yeah, it gets confusing. I wonder if they themselves know how to pronounce Chinese names when written in Roman letters.

I believe that e.g. Cantonese "Cheung" is equivalent to Mandarin "Chiang" (to my ears: [tʃiaŋ])
Edited Date: 2010-05-18 06:35 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-18 08:38 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hvincent.livejournal.com
similarly, my last name is spelled 'zeng' both as an anglicization and in the proper mandarin romanization (there are people who romanize the same character as 'tseng'. i pronounce it exactly how it looks to anglophones because it is both easier for me to pronounce it that way when i'm speaking english and also easier for other anglophones to pick up on it. but in chinese, it's properly pronounced more like 'tzung'.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-18 08:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gustavolacerda.livejournal.com
When I had Mandarin lessons last year, "e" was often [ə]/[ʌ] (maybe almost always?)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 03:13 am (UTC)
gregh1983: (Default)
From: [personal profile] gregh1983
This was a fun post, and it reminded me that I got to pick the French pronunciation of my last name while I was in France last fall. Starting with an "H" is really annoying in French, but I wasn't the only one with that problem: there was an actual French guy in my building whose name was "Haas," and he said he always got misunderstood as as [as] ("ace").

I also had a bit of a back-and-forth with my first name. In France, "Grégory" is a known name, so I usually went by that informally, but when it came time to fill out official forms and things, I left off the accent aigu because it's not officially there in my name.

So fun times all around...

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 11:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] peamasii.livejournal.com
No, in Romanian it would be [gustavo] (same as Italian). We always speak each letter identically no matter where it's in a word, or which word it is, so the final 'o' cannot be pronounced as an 'u'.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 04:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gustavolacerda.livejournal.com
right, but can't you easily imagine that my name is "Gustavu"?

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 05:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] peamasii.livejournal.com
Yeah, of course, I was just referring to the pronunciation.

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 05:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gustavolacerda.livejournal.com
I thought it would fit right in with Claudiu, Flaviu, Horatiu, Liviu, Petru (though those names are from Roman times... You don't see Eduardu, Ericu, Gustavu, Ricardu maybe because these names are Germanic)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 05:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] peamasii.livejournal.com
Seems, those would be names with an 's' at the end in original Latin, and Romanian words or names very rarely end in 's', so there is a truncation (the most popular is the name 'Ion', which is a short form of the Byzantine Iohannes, 'Constantin' and 'Petre/Petru'). Other names like 'Octavian' or 'Florin' are truncated to the last consonant. The etymological origins around the times of the Eastern Roman empire are very apparent.

In your case if you were named in Romania it would be 'Gustav', presumably as a new form of an ancient 'Gustavus Flavius Lacerdus'. ;-)

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-19 04:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cwarner.livejournal.com
I must practice pronouncing your name next time I see you!

(no subject)

Date: 2010-05-20 01:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] simrob.livejournal.com
And don't forget Maverick, the Chinese CSD student who just gave up and named himself "Maverick."

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