Micro aggression and African American names

[Shryke]

To be technically correct, the "dd" in Welsh represents only one of the sounds represented by "th" in English. English uses that letter combination for two different sounds -- the sound heard in "thin" and "bath" and the sound heard in "this" and "bathe." I believe in Welsh "dd" represents the latter, while the former is spelled "th" in Welsh as it is in English.

Personally I've always thought English spelling would be much better if we had different spellings to represent these two separate sounds, as there really is no way to figure out which one to use if one runs across a new word with "th" in it in English. 

I'm not sure I can tell the difference between these two when I pronounce "thin" vs "this". Wikipedia used "This" vs "Thing" which I can maybe kinda hear the difference in.

[Shryke]

Oh I didn't mean to come across as prissy! I honestly do not mind people mispronouncing my name, especially people outside of the UK because if you are not familiar with  celtic names how on earth would you realise that Shahn comes from Siân and Shavawn comes from Siobhan for example. I am okayish with Welsh, Scottiah and Irish names but I stumble on quite a few and when corrected am good at sticking with it! 

Sean was so hurtful to me because it came from an english accent where Siân sounds nothing like Sean and it was uses because of Shaun the Sheep and me being Welsh and  the whole Welsh sheep joke thing...but none od that context would make sense in America and because of American accents Siân is pronounced rather similar to Sean/Shaun. 

Thanks Ormond - I think I have an ordinary ish name compared to a lot of celtic names (I do really love my name though) so I didnt expect such an interesting post to come from my post but it was very informative you explain language and pronunciations in very clear and educational ways

 

I made a short audio post explaining it better. 

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Nl20yy2Z5w

Sorry not high jacking thread just leading off from ormonds post 

This is pretty awesome. It's kinda funny that I can totally hear the differences but when trying to actually pronounce it the only way I can pull it off is to put on my atrociously bad and nonsensical "generic britishy accent" because I guess I just don't pronounce those letters that way in my normal accent.

One of those weird things where despite being ostensibly all this being in english, I'm better with french words vs what you were talking about because my brain automatically switches how it pronounces letters the minute I start reading/speaking french.

[Deedles]

Again, I'm not trying to say that English spelling is always proper.  What I want to know is what is it about Gaelic, that I don't see, that creates the need for the spellings that I, as a native English speaker, perceive as unusual.

the spellings create the pronunciation. A fluent Irish speaker will know how to pronounce unknown words according to well defined rules. Don't make me go hunting for those poems about English  homonyms? What is it about your language that makes words spelt the same sound differently, regardless of the context? Where's the sense and or rule?

[The guy from the Vale]

Yeah, pretty much what Deedles said. English is hard to pronounce correctly. I know, I teach it, and my students utterly fail to read words in any way a native speaker could understand them... but I can't blame them since their pronunciation makes sense to them and their vocab so far. The worst offender is "read". It's pronounced like "reed" in present tense, but "red" in past tense while written the exact same way. And yes, homophones. Lots and lots of homophones. German has its faults and spelling inconsistencies, but it's far more consistent in its spelling than English.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

 

the spellings create the pronunciation. A fluent Irish speaker will know how to pronounce unknown words according to well defined rules. Don't make me go hunting for those poems about English  homonyms? What is it about your language that makes words spelt the same sound differently, regardless of the context? Where's the sense and or rule?

Deedles,

I've heard it said that this faciet of English is among the reasons it is one of the most difficult languages to learn from scratch.  Context matters for almost everything.  Synonyms and homophones are pains in the ass.

[Eyron]

From a European viewpoint I absolutely believe that there are a lot of people who deliberately mispronounce, or don't even bother trying to pronounce names, with a racist motive. "why do they have to be so difficult" "why can't they spell the same/right way" "I'm not even going to try to say that right" etc. Of course there is sometimes a language barrier but I think most who have very difficult names are aware of this and don't always expect a perfect result, and even often produce a nickname.

My own names require a lot of explanation mostly, and they are not even long complicated names. 

I'm not sure I can tell the difference between these two when I pronounce "thin" vs "this". Wikipedia used "This" vs "Thing" which I can maybe kinda hear the difference in.

To me there is a clear difference in both cases. One has the root in a t-sound and the other a d-sound. Same as the letters þ (Þ) and ð (Ð) in Icelandic. Didn't English just lose the letters for those sounds at some point? I know there were the letter 'thorn' as in ye (the) but it looked a bit different than a y i think. It would have helped to keep those letters!

We just did away with both the letters and the sounds in this case.

 

ETA: it appears the letters were originally the the same as in Icelandic! þ (thorn) and ð (eth) but the latter didn't live on as long in the language and þ was commonly used for both sounds instead.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Eyron,

I can believe that.  Getting away from pronunciation, the Spanish custom of using a child's Mother's surname as part of their child's full surname frequently throws people in the Anglo centric US.

[Eyron]

The Welsh incidentally are among the few who get my first name exactly right! The name exists there as well. That's always a nice change. 

My last name is a very uncommon French name, so that makes people more confused about which language to draw clues from. We just pronounce it as written in my language, no French accent.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

Eyron,

I can believe that.  Getting away from pronunciation, the Spanish custom of using a child's Mother's surname as part of their child's full surname frequently throws people in the Anglo centric US.

That really confuses the hell out of me.  My understanding is that the mother's family name comes first.  

[zelticgar]

From a European viewpoint I absolutely believe that there are a lot of people who deliberately mispronounce, or don't even bother trying to pronounce names, with a racist motive. "why do they have to be so difficult" "why can't they spell the same/right way" "I'm not even going to try to say that right" etc. Of course there is sometimes a language barrier but I think most who have very difficult names are aware of this and don't always expect a perfect result, and even often produce a nickname.

I knew a guy in college named Jacob but his real name was spelled Jakob. He used the more widely accepted spelling because his parents were hippies who thought it look cool to spell it with a K. He was kind of bitter about it and he used to rant about it when he had to show his student ID. 

Not sure if it is because of him or not but I find myself being judgmental when I see English names spelled without using the more formal version. I'm mostly talking about simple changes - a name with a single "n" when the customary name contains "nn", or when someone uses a "y" instead of an "i", or one "t" when it should have "tt"... I would never say anything but I am totally judging their parents.

 

[HairBearHero]

A few of the Chinese students have "American" names that they use at school and one goes by an American nickname. 

When my dad worked in Hong Kong all employees had an Anglo name and a Chinese one. There was a lady whose job it was to come up with the Chinese ones, keeping the assonance and rhythm of your English name. Dad's was "Dai Wai Wong".

It only occurred to him that this might actually mean something in Chinese after a few weeks. 

When asked, the Chinese lady shuffled rather awkwardly and responded that it was "a name indicating great prosperity and wisdom".

Turns out my dad had been introducing himself as "Fat Stomach" for the last 6 weeks. 

[Whitestripe]

When my dad worked in Hong Kong all employees had an Anglo name and a Chinese one. There was a lady whose job it was to come up with the Chinese ones, keeping the assonance and rhythm of your English name. Dad's was "Dai Wai Wong".

It only occurred to him that this might actually mean something in Chinese after a few weeks. 

When asked, the Chinese lady shuffled rather awkwardly and responded that it was "a name indicating great prosperity and wisdom".

Turns out my dad had been introducing himself as "Fat Stomach" for the last 6 weeks. 

That's funny! The Chinese students who have picked American names go by Neil, Patricia, Carol, and Wendy. The Chinese students who do not are Wenlu, Wenyu, Ying Bin, Dian (not to be confused with Diane) and Quan Wan

[HexMachina]

That's funny! The Chinese students who have picked American names go by Neil, Patricia, Carol, and Wendy. The Chinese students who do not are Wenlu, Wenyu, Ying Bin, Dian (not to be confused with Diane) and Quan Wan

We have quite a lot of overseas students at my uni too, particularly from Singapore, and I know quite a few of them introduce themselves with their actual name and then follow up with (for example) "but just call me Tim". When I was talking to one of these students, she told me she just found it easier than constantly having to correct people's pronunciations

[Ormond]

I knew a guy in college named Jacob but his real name was spelled Jakob. He used the more widely accepted spelling because his parents were hippies who thought it look cool to spell it with a K. He was kind of bitter about it and he used to rant about it when he had to show his student ID. 

Not sure if it is because of him or not but I find myself being judgmental when I see English names spelled without using the more formal version. I'm mostly talking about simple changes - a name with a single "n" when the customary name contains "nn", or when someone uses a "y" instead of an "i", or one "t" when it should have "tt"... I would never say anything but I am totally judging their parents.

 

This guy was bitter because his parents spelled his name Jakob? There must have been other issues with his parents going on there! That's just about the most minor and understandable spelling variation possible -- Jakob is the normal form in German and some other languages and many Americans use that spelling to honor ancestors of Germanic heritage.

If he was bitter about Jakob, he should be happy they didn't spell it Jaccob, Jaecob, Jaicob, Jaikob, Jakeb, Jakub, Jaycob, Jaycub, or Jaykob -- all of which were bestowed on at least five boys born in the USA in 2014. 

The only one of the above which I find unfortunate, by the way, is Jaccob, because according to normal English spelling conventions that really should be pronounced with "Jack" instead of "Jay" as the first syllable. 

[Eyron]

I knew a guy in college named Jacob but his real name was spelled Jakob. He used the more widely accepted spelling because his parents were hippies who thought it look cool to spell it with a K. He was kind of bitter about it and he used to rant about it when he had to show his student ID. 

Not sure if it is because of him or not but I find myself being judgmental when I see English names spelled without using the more formal version. I'm mostly talking about simple changes - a name with a single "n" when the customary name contains "nn", or when someone uses a "y" instead of an "i", or one "t" when it should have "tt"... I would never say anything but I am totally judging their parents.

 

Well, I don't know if your friend's parents have background in another country, but Jakob is the normal spelling of the name where I'm from and I think in most parts of north and east Europe. It's not pronounced as your Jacob. We also have Mikael, for example, but it's not pronounced the same as Michael, more like Michail, but with a K sound. It's not supposed to be the same name as Michael, but like with many of our names we overlook that most English speakers can't pronounce it right and translate it to one of your names instead when speaking to you.

As a general rule, I think it's good not to assume pretentiousness, wanting to be original or such, when you see a name spelled differently than what you are used to. Like Ana, which is not the same name as the English Anna, for example. It's similar but doesn't even sound the same when pronounced in most languages.

My name is spelled exactly as it's supposed to, but it's extremely uncommon even though it's a native name.

[The guy from the Vale]

Yep. "Jakob" (pronounced "Yah-kob") is the most natural spelling for that name in the world for me.

Funnily enough, my first name has turned out to create considerable problems for East Asians I've had to work with in the past, which is why I often offer them an abbreviated version of my name once I see they're struggling.

[Eyron]

Yep. "Jakob" (pronounced "Yah-kob") is the most natural spelling for that name in the world for me.

That's how we say it too. Perfectly natural! 

[zelticgar]

I told him to just go by Jake and be done with it. 

[Buckwheat]

Jakob, pronounced the same way as Vale-guy and Eyron describe, is the most obvious and common version of the name for me too.

I do not think abbreviated or simplified version is always an option. My name is just 2 syllables, written with 4 letters. There really is no way to shorten it any more, and still it can be problematic for foreigners. I guess you could just cut it in half, but that would 1. sound ridiculous to me 2. not help the problem, which lies in the 1st syllable 2. if pronounced correctly, I would be called like a pirate: "AYE!"

I do not think abbreviations and nicknames are even socially appropriate in formal situations.

[The guy from the Vale]

Both of those are, of course, true. Even my name is not really pronounced the way I pronounce it by Anglos because it contains the letter J, which in my language is spoken like the English y (hence also Jakob="Yah-kob"). But I've just always coped with the fact that for Anglos, my name begins with a "Dsh" instead of a "J". Same for the French pronunciation, which also butchers the third syllable so much the French version of my name just dropped all pretense of trying and they basically just pronounce the first one.