My Beef About Foreign Languages

I love language. I love the one I speak. I love the one I try to speak. I love to learn where the roots of words come from and their history. Perhaps it is because I am a girl and like to talk, but I really do love to study languages. (Not to be a linguist - I would be terrible at learning many more languages, although I would like to).

My first thought on the problem with language came as I listened to the local evening news. The women were giving a report on some Mexican festival in the area, such as Cinco de Mayo. And suddenly in the midst of a perfectly American sentence, fluid, and perhaps over-pronounced, Spanish came flying from the TV. Now what was that all about? I pick on Spanish because I speak it, a little, myself. But I really get kind of tired of newscasters going out of their way to pronounce words in their native equivalent. I remember after September 11th, Kabul suddenly started being pronounced "Cobble," and Seoul "Soul." (By the way, when did Osama bin Laden become Usama? It seems he suspiciously changed his name a little over a year ago...)

I understand what is going on - an attempt to be respectful of a language and politically correct. But at the same time, throwing a perfectly pronounced foreign word into an English phrase sounds, well, foreign. Much better to Americanize it as best you can. For instance, when I was in Spain, I loved to hear the telecasters say, "George Boooosh." (And they could have said Jorge Arbusto, too!). But if they were to suddenly twang his name all out like we Americans do, it would have ruined the phrase. Words flow melodically from our lips, and I think it is much better to keep the flow any day than to stumble over pronounciations.

(By the way, I wonder if the new political correctness arose with the development of the internet, as native speakers started writing nasty letters to stations telling them exactly how to pronounce certain words).

And that leads me to my second beef about language - who translated Asian words into Roman letters? Honestly, I worked with a girl from China once named Fang. Pronounged Fong. Now, if she had been from Spain or France, I would have said, "Ah, well that is an interesting trait of French pronounciation." But she was from China, which means her name was actually spelled as a bunch of symbols. Some wise guy a long time ago took those symbols and tied them to English phoenetics. And he did a terrible job! It would be just as easy for her to spell her name Fong of Fahng or something, and people would mispronounce it less! And what about all the Nyguens? (Did I spell that right?) I think that is pronounced "win." So why not spell it that way? Or at least Wyn. I have no problem with the Chinese language (or other Asian or Arabic languages). I am just shocked that the English speaker who translated them did such a bad job!

But speaking of the translator, I have one more beef about foreign languages. And it has to do with maps (and money, I suppose). The area we call Germany today used to be called Bohemia. And it consisted of many little states. But now it is Germany. Not so fast. In German I learned that the country is called Deutchland. (Spreichen se deutch?). In Spanish, the country is referred to as Aleman. Three words for the same country?

Now if newscasters have enough respect for a language to try to pronounce it impeccably, why do we not have enough respect for other countries to list their countries (as phoenetically possible) by the name they call it? I have in my mind a map of the world with countries like Deuchland, Espania, and Mehico (We would have to change our spelling of Mexico if we wanted to pronounce it as close as possible to Mexico). I have noticed this phenomenon all over the world - in Spain we visited Seviya (Seville). Italy is Italia. Is it really that hard to say these words? I know there is a trade off between correct spelling (as in Mexico) and correct pronounciation, but in some countries (Spain) we don't even try. I am sure there are many many more examples in Asian countries.

Of course, it goes both ways. I actually like what the United States is called in Spanish - Los Estados Unidos. A direct translation of the words. But most countries aren't called a word (like a noun) they are called a proper name. (Many countries also have thsi United States or other descriptor word before their proper name. We, however, are not allowed to use America because that is seen as the name for the whole continent. Still, when it is the United States of Mexico, I see not why we can't be called America because that is in our full name). Anyway, I am trying now to phoenetically spell "United States" in a way that a Spanish speaker could pronounce that sounds like it does in English, and it's hard...Junidad Stits (hoo-nee-dahd steets?). And, of course, it's nonsense in Spanish. It kind of reminds me of that word game we played in college. But still, an American overhearing this in a conversation might actually be clued in that someone is talking about his homeland!

Okay, so that's a pipe dream... :) But it's fun to play around with.

My other question is about money, and it really is a kind of question. Dollars, pounds, pesos, yen, euros. All are words for money. I know I'm a little off base because of pounds and dollars - both words for currency in English speaking countries. But I believe a difference in pounds is that they are not base 100. Still, a yen or a peso - that's like a dollar in Japan or Mexico! I know, I know - it's not like a dollar. That's why we have the exchange rate, and it's very complicated. At times, I think both yens and pesos are more equivalent to the penny or dime than dollar.

My problem is that we call them the Japanese Yen or the Mexican Peso. Why not call it the Japanese Dollar or the Mexican Dollar? And the Mexicans could call our dollar the American Peso. I mean, otherwise Dollar is a kind of proper noun instead of a noun that kind of means, "the local currency."

I am trying to think of an off-base example...how about a book? I mean, you would not start talking about a new "libro" just because it was a book you got from Spain, or that was written by a Spanish author, would you? No, you tranlsate the noun back to English. So why pull out all the yen you got in Japan and not call them Japanese dollars? (Because yen is easier to say!) :)

Okay, so those were my random thoughts on foreign languages. Ideas that will never ever take hold...they may not seem politically correct at first, but I am trying to be fair. If I do any foreign language a disservice, note that I am willing that they do the same disservice to English. :)