[Wikipedia-l] Pronunciations of things foreign

[Gerard Meijssen]

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