What language (other than English) do you speak?

[Paulbot]

I say TRANSformer, Poke-ee-mon, I pronounce Extract and Extracted the same way, and the Transformer planet Caminus didn't have a way to pronounce it correctly until the cartoon that Hasbro approved gave us one

Build a spacebridge and oh wait, Japanese is a language where pronunciation really, really matters right? Maybe we should all learn Japanese? Is that your secret agenda!?

[GoktimusPrime]

I think you are overthinking this waaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy too much mate. tom-AY-to, tom-AH-to really

This is nothing yet. I have yet to scratch the surface on what I really think about this issue. I work in language education and it is something that I'm very passionate about and is close to my heart. My rant here is only 5% of what I'm actually thinking, but I've cut most of it out because I don't think anyone else wants to read a 300,000 word thesis on what I really think. Nobody would bother reading endless great walls of texts, so it'd just be a waste of my time writing it anyway. You should spend a day sitting in our faculty, we go into far more intense linguistic discussions than anything that's ever mentioned here. (that's what happens when you're working in a room full of language teachers - and it's not just Japanese, we also teach Latin, French and German at our school)

Do you pronaunce Ikea as i-kea or eh-kea?

ice or igloo?

IKEA is actually an acronym which stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd (the first two words is the name of Ikea's founder and the last two are place names). So as an acronym the pronunciation will conform to the base phonology of the language that's pronouncing it. English speakers pronounce Ikea as /aɪˈkiːə/ ("eye-kee-uh") whereas it's pronounced as /ɪˈkeːˈa/ ("ee-kee-ah") in its native Sweden, as you can here in this video (Swedes still say "ee-kee-ah" even when speaking in other languages like English).

I say TRANSformer, Poke-ee-mon, I pronounce Extract and Extracted the same way, and the Transformer planet Caminus didn't have a way to pronounce it correctly until the cartoon that Hasbro approved gave us one

Build a spacebridge and oh wait, Japanese is a language where pronunciation really, really matters right? Maybe we should all learn Japanese? Is that your secret agenda!?

This thread is meant for the serious discussion of languages. If this is not something that interests you, then I would respectfully ask you to please refrain from making provocative comments which add nothing constructive to the discussion. You will be aware that this is in violation of board rule #1:

1 - Treatment of others
Treat others in a way that they would want to be treated by others, with respect and dignity. Do not criticise, insult, abuse, ridicule or bait a negative response from others. If you respond abusively to someone else's baiting (instead of reporting the situation to a board staff member), you may be treated the same as the person doing the baiting. Bad behaviour in any form deters lurkers, guests and regular members from interacting here.

Thank you, sir.

[Megatran]

A great guy once wrote:

And try not to be a party pooper, spoiling the fun for others. This is a place of entertainment and enjoyment, so it should be a fairly relaxed environment for you and others to play in.

[GoktimusPrime]

That is precisely why I redirected this discussion, which originally came from the Combiner Wars series thread, into this thread which is intended for actual discussion of languages. And if someone should come into this thread and make facetiously provocative comments towards other users, then that ends up spoiling this thread for those of us who are passionate about languages. If this is a topic that doesn't interest someone, then that person can easily just stay away from this thread. There's a reason why you don't see me posting in the Unauthorised toy section of this board.

Anyway, back to constructive and relevant discussion on language...

[Bladestorm]

When it comes down to words/dialogue in TV shows I think the correct pronunciation is often forgotten and becomes dependant on the actors who first say the words.

I remember many years back there was a massive who-haa in Buffy about the name "Angelus".
Different actors pronounced it differently in the first season from episode to episode and it wasn't until the end of season one or early in season two they seemed to get all the actors on the same pronunciation.
The actors themselves admitted in interviews they had no idea how to pronounce it when they read the script and no one gave them direction on HOW to pronounce it initially so they all went with their own interpretations.

I would pronounce caminus KAH-mi-nus personally but I haven't heard how bad the CW version is as I've been holding off watching as the voices really grate on me. Given it seems like they've cut corners in places I doubt correct pronounciation is high on their agenda.

[Borgeman]

Anyway, back to constructive and relevant discussion on language...

Unfortunately, I dont believe it can be constructive, as your great passion means you will fight tooth and nail to enforce your opinion as the "right" one, in this case being that Caminus is being pronounced wrong.

I stand by my statement that regardless of origin, a person's name can be pronounced however which way that person, or indeed the parents (at birth in real life) choose too. Cammy-ness, Cam-eye-ness, Cam-eye-noose, Cah-mine-us, etc etc. All acceptable as NAMES.

If you walk around telling people that their name is pronounced wrong for whatever reason, you will be for the most part ridiculed or told where to go.

[DaptoDog]

I've been led here from the Combiner Wars thread. I interrupt these proceedings to say that I had never heard of the Tagalog language until now (but of course I know of the Philippines). I have learned something new. Thank you. I will now leave so please carry on with the Caminus discussion.

[griffin]

Unfortunately, I dont believe it can be constructive, as your great passion means you will fight tooth and nail to enforce your opinion as the "right" one, in this case being that Caminus is being pronounced wrong.

I stand by my statement that regardless of origin, a person's name can be pronounced however which way that person, or indeed the parents (at birth in real life) choose too. Cammy-ness, Cam-eye-ness, Cam-eye-noose, Cah-mine-us, etc etc. All acceptable as NAMES.

If you walk around telling people that their name is pronounced wrong for whatever reason, you will be for the most part ridiculed or told where to go.

That reminds me of the 2007 Movie press event in Sydney, Megan Fox sternly corrected someone for pronouncing her name "mee-gan", by telling them that she pronounces her name "may-gan"... so it certainly goes to your point of different people pronounce words differently, particularly if it is a new word or name (that hasn't been officially noted as being derived from any pre-existing word).
After all, dialects (accents) would technically mispronounce words to others, but not to themselves... like how every vowel in New Zealand is "u"... fush & chups anyone?

(Caminus may indeed be mispronounced, but until we get official word from the creator of the word on how it is meant to be pronounced or what word it is derived from, if at all, we can only go on what is (audio) canon, and so far it is only the machinima cartoon.)


And people shouldn't make this personal or insult others... just ignore a person who is more fanatical than you are about something... after all, we are all fans of something here, and "fan" comes from the word "fanatical".

[GoktimusPrime]

I stand by my statement that regardless of origin, a person's name can be pronounced however which way that person, or indeed the parents (at birth in real life) choose too. Cammy-ness, Cam-eye-ness, Cam-eye-noose, Cah-mine-us, etc etc. All acceptable as NAMES.

If you walk around telling people that their name is pronounced wrong for whatever reason, you will be for the most part ridiculed or told where to go.

That's a reasonable point. I often have students who tell me that their name is pronounced in an unconventional way, and at the end of the day I have to pronounce it in the way that they want it to be pronounced. When I mark a roll for the first time, before I start marking I tell the class to correct me if I say any names wrong. And if it's a name that I have trouble pronouncing or keep forgetting to pronounce it in their preferred way, I tell the student to not relent in bugging me about the preferred pronunciation until I get it right.

I await to hear Caminus (or other Titans) speak his own name (perhaps in a flashback) to see how he pronounces his own name. And yes, if he says "Cammyness," then I can accept that this is how the name is pronounced. Before Scourge appeared in The Transformers The Movie, I used to pronounce that name as in rhyming with "merge." Then I saw TFTM and heard Unicron christen him as "Scourge" rhyming with "forge." I can concede that "Cammyness" may be the way that the name of the planet is pronounced. Gah... it still just sounds so wrong to me though. I guess it's similar to how a lot of Anglophones pronounce croissant as /kɹəˈsɒnt/ ("kruh-sont"), whereas Canadians pronounce it more like French as /kɹwɑˈsɑ̃/ ("krwuh-son"). I saw a video once from a Canadian who said that he and his Canadian mates were sitting in a café in the US and they ordered croissant and were criticised by Americans for their "mispronunciation" of 'croissant,' where in reality their pronunciation is technically more correct since it's actually a French word!

After all, dialects (accents) would technically mispronounce words to others, but not to themselves... like how every vowel in New Zealand is "u"... fush & chups anyone?

Dialectal variations isn't the same as mispronunciations though, as those variants are usually a result of divergent evolution. The different vowels in New Zealand and South African English is because their phonology is diluted with Dutch, whereas Australian English phonology is descendant from Cockney.

Here are some videos which you guys might find entertaining.

• Comparing the pronunciation of "Popeye" in English, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Here the Japanese and Korean girl realise that the Japanese and Korean word for "Popeye" sound similar to each other (but different from English). They high five each other as the American laments in horror.

• Comparing the pronunciation of "sofa" in English, Korean and Japanese. Japanese is "Sofa" (but Japanese "f" sounds different from English so the American guy hears it as "hw" (it's actually midway between the two), and in Korean it's "Sopa". The Japanese girl and Korean guy are debating between "sohwa" and "sopa" while the American guy tells them that they're both wrong because it's "sofa" because it's from English (it's actually originally an Arabic word (ṣuffa/صُفَّة), but it arrived in Korean and Japanese via English).

I'm empathising a lot with this American dude. And yeah, "Bobbai" and "Sopa" are also technically correct in those languages... but boy does it feel wrong.