Hoi,
There is this joke about these Americans asking for the "tjamps
ilajsies" in Paris, and nobody ever heard of it... Many words cannot be
properly pronounced by people not speaking the language. Many news
organisations have their presenters trained in pronouncing foreign words..
When we write about things foreign, there is often no difinitive word
for the subject in the language that the article is written in. So often
we try to find something that will do. Most often we use what others
used before us, often it is a transliteration or a transcription to yet
another language. With our digital encyclopedia, it is easy to add
pronunciation of words in the local language. We often add how it is
written in another script and, it would make equal sense to add the
pronunciation in the local language as well.
As an example I have done this in the wikipedias for "Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer" and for "Silvio Berlusconi". I have also pronounced and
uploaded the category of Dutch politicians from the en:wikipedia to
Commons... Could an American please pronounce and upload George W. Bush
and a Chinese 胡锦涛 ??
Thanks,
GerardM