[Wikipedia-l] International cooperation on sounds

[Rowan Collins]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 13:44:20 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think what he meant is, do we need a file of somebody pronouncing
> "Gerard Meijssen" the Dutch way on the English wiktionary, or a file
> of somebody pronouncing the way it is usually pronounced in English?
> 
> Jacques Chirac is pronounced /ʤɑk ʃɪ˞ɑk/ in English from my
> experience, while in French it would be (I think) /ʒɑk ʃɪɾɑk/.

Although kind of intriguing from a linguist's point of view, knowing
how an Englishman pronounces "Jacques Chirac" isn't all that
informative - an Englishman will already know, a Frenchman won't care
and nor will, say, a Dutchman (unless, as I say, they are enthusiasts
of some sort). It also immensely increases the number of target sounds
to do it that way: every word available in every language as opposed
to every word once (in its own language).

So I think it's best to stick with (and this seems to be what Gerard
is describing) one "native" pronunciation for each term.

An amusing anecdote that's kind of relevant though is a piece on
Channel 4's coverage of the Tour de France some years back (before
they gave up covering it) in which they attempted to work out how to
pronounce "Richard Virenque" - they showed a series of some half a
dozen French people, all pronouncing it *completely* differently, and
concluded that we should carry on using whatever pronunciation seemed
best.

The moral of which is probably that we need multiple pronunciations
for each term, even within the restriction of them being "native". :)

-- 
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]