At 09:29 AM 3/14/03 -0500, Darcy James Argue wrote: >On a related note, when did this concern with accurate place name >pronunciation become an issue? I mean, to my knowledge, no one is >seriously trying to reform the English pronunciation of "Paris," or get >the French to stop referring to that city on the Themes as "Londres."
Those are name variants, really. Parijs in Dutch. There's Cologne, Köln, Colonia, Koelen... I think local-placename pronunciation accuracy is a very American thing, driven by a wish to be respectful (and for some, by political correctness) and the fact that we have a one-language continent-spanning country. We have many traditional place-names here, and their pronunciations are odd (Vermont's Calais and Barre are 'CALess' and 'berry', New York's Hauppauge is 'hopog', New Jersey's Bogota is 'bGOtuh' and Ohio's Lima is 'lyma'), but I can't think of any with more than one name (some have changed, like New Jersey's Levittown became Willingboro -- if my memory serves) except for those representing historical/cultural conflict (Native American placenames) and those on national borders. I've met many Europeans who think our concern for local placename pronunciation is silly, but we tend to take it pretty seriously (except for the traditionally well-known names that we inherited from the English forebears). Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
