[Wikipedia-l] International cooperation on sounds

[Richard Holton]

On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:14:27 +0000, Rowan Collins
<rowan.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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". :)
> 

Of course, the definitive pronunciation for any person's name is the
way that person pronounces it (or maybe the way that person's mother
pronounces it :-) ).

For some famous people, we ought to be able to get audio snippets of
them pronouncing their own name -- George W. Bush pronounced his own
name at his inauguration, didn't he?

Would such a audio snippet fall under fair use or equivalents?

--Rich Holton
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton