posted
I see what you mean, but if he spoke only Russian for the first part of his life, his ability to realise unfamiliar sounds might be stunted (especially if it were not requested of him).
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:And yet Chekov, spending decades among anglophones, still can't manage a simple, proper V?
Define a proper "V". V sounds different in Cheapside and Chattanooga and Calgary and Cairns.
Assuming English does become a universal second language to the world, who's to say more regional pronounciations develop that incorporate some of the nuances of the indigenous language? For instance, many Africans, Indians and Afro-Caribbeans today speak English fluently as a first or second language but still incorporate distinct elements of local languages which surface in the form of accents. If you want a specific example, most well-educated people in India have spoken English since childhood and continue to do so on an everyday basis and yet still speak with what we dub as a distinctly East Indian accent. Until they stop sounding like Apu, are they not speaking "proper" English?
It's a simple fact that in many Eastern European languages V's and W's are interchangeable. If English becomes more widely spoken, who's to say an English-speaking Russian won't get in the habit of pronouncing V as W when speaking to an English-speaking-Pole or another English-speaking-Russian? If anything, the more people that speak a certain second language in an area, the less likely they are to aspire to sound like one regional accent elsewhere (ie. American English or Australian English) and the more likely they are to be perfectly fine with sounding like all their English-speaking neighbors, resulting in the emergence of a local dialect that firmly includes such examples of "improper" English pronounciations. This happened in South Africa, Kenya, Jamaica and India. Why is it unreasonable to think it will happen in Russia?
To go back to Chekov, let's assume he grew up from childhood speaking both Russian and this Russian-accented English. Why would he feel any need to radically change his pronounciation when he went to Starfleet Academy at 17 or whatever and heard Americans and Brits speaking English in their accents? Indeed, even if he wanted to, keep in mind that accents, especially accents-within-a-language, are incredibly firm things once one leaves childhood. My parents still sound distinctly Irish and yet my family has lived in Canada for years and years. If they had come to Canada speaking no English whatsoever they'd be far more likely to have learnt to speak English with a so-called "broken" Canadian accent. But seeing as their English is already serviceable anywhere in the world regardless of local accent, why even try to change, assuming they could? The same with Chekov.. if he already spoke serviceable English in his own little Russian way that most Russians spoke it why even try to make himself sound like someone's definition of "proper" English?
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
posted
"Define a proper "V". V sounds different in Cheapside and Chattanooga and Calgary and Cairns."
Actually...it doesn't. The modern English V is the orthographical equivalent of a voiced labiodental fricative (although feel free to point out exceptions).
posted
Care for some wittles, Frank? Or should I say, vittles?
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
A high level of proficiency in the common language of Starfleet, whatever it is, should be mandatory. Otherwise you risk an exchange like the conference in "The Right Stuff" where LBJ couldn't understand what the German lead engineer was saying. "A spaceman?" "A specimen!" "Jimp, what's a jimp?" "A chimp, an ape!" Not the kind of misunderstanding you want in combat. Just saying Chekov speaks better English than Bubba in Florida isn't good enough, unless you don't mind Bubba at Tactical.
BTW, if you're referring to Great Expectations, wasn't the word actually "victuals" but pronounced "vittles"? I don't recall seeing it spelled wittles.
posted
I'd also like to point out that Chekov wasn't simply blurring a "V" sound into a "W" sound -- he was transposing the two. In the same movie, not too long after asking after those "nuclear wessels" he is heard to ask "the top of vhat?"
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I'm not sure what the accent is, but a lot of characters in Dickens' books pronounce 'v' like 'w'. Usually, they tend to be the less-educated characters, if that means anything. As a matter of fact, let me grab my copy of A Tale of Two Cities. Jerry Cruncher talks like that all the time...
"'... I might have made some money last week instead of being counterprayed and countermined and religiouslt circumwented into the worst of luck. ...and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!'"
Note the spelling used to reflect the pronunciation of "circumvent" and "Aggravater". And, as was mentioned another popular one is "vittles"/"wittles" (yes, the real word is "victuals"). I read Dickens a lot, and this sort of shows up quite often.
BTW, I know a girl who's from Bosnia, but she's lived in the US for, I think, around eight years or so now (since she was, I guess, around eleven). She still has a very thick accent, and, in the couple years I've known her, I don't think it's become any more "American". So, just because someone is around people w/ a certain accent, it doesn't mean theirs will change.
posted
As I mentioned, v used to be a bilabial approximant (modern w), but it has since changed to a fricative in modern germanic languages. The thing in Dickens would be a transitional stage.
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posted
Another thing I've just thought of... There are a lot of people in this country (the US) who speak w/ foreign (i.e. non-English-speaking native) accents, and it's pretty much accepted. When I hear people speaking w/ an accent that clearly belies the fact that they grew up w/ a different language, I don't find any problem w/ it, as long as they're understandable (refer to the bit about my friend in my post above). But, if people here try to pronounce foreign words, and they do it w/ an American accent, they seem to be considered "stupid Americans". To cite a previous example, people who say "wuhr-nuhr vahn brawn" instead of "vehr-nuhr fawn brown" are considered wrong, while someone who would pronounce my name (Tim Nix) to sound almost like "teem neex" would just have an accent. So, if someone from, say, Germany, can come over here and pronounced their 'w's like 'v's, and rolled their 'r's, and all that, and be "right", couldn't I go to Germany and greet someone w/ "guh-ten tagg, wee sihnd see?", rather than "goot-uhn tahk, vee zihnt zee?", and not be laughed at?
Maybe I'm imagining things, but I've always gotten the impression that pronouncing foreign words w/ an American accent is considered "wrong", while pronouncing English words w/ a foreign accent is okay. Why is that?
BTW, I only used the German example because I took five years of German classes, so I know more about it than other languages (except English, of course). It was just an example.
posted
Yeah, the specific example I had in mind was Magwich (sp?) from Great Expectations, but I think Tim has suitably explained otherwise.
quote:A high level of proficiency in the common language of Starfleet, whatever it is, should be mandatory. (...) Just saying Chekov speaks better English than Bubba in Florida isn't good enough, unless you don't mind Bubba at Tactical.
In anycase, what this boils down to is the question of at what point does bad English become English in a different accent. Brits could quite logically claim that even what gets said on the American nightly news, let alone down in the Bayou, is a bad pronounciation by butchers of their language. But they don't.
Considering English is already spoken in hundreds of different accents on Earth today, I can't see Starfleet forcing everyone to sit down and learn Queen's English or Jim Lehrer English just so everyone can understand one another. I've already outlined above how the expansion of English could (and probably would) create new accents, and presupposing that the Starfleet elocution police should deem some acceptable and others not is a little out-of-line.
[ May 31, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]
-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
quote: Maybe I'm imagining things, but I've always gotten the impression that pronouncing foreign words w/ an American accent is considered "wrong", while pronouncing English words w/ a foreign accent is okay. Why is that?
I think it's your imagination. But it could also be that when Americans speak foreign words, they generally appropriate them and have the attitude of "this is the way it will be pronounced irrespective of how the Germans (for example) say it." Immigrants, OTOH, aren't trying to "corrupt" English. It's an individual thing, with each mispronouncing words in a slightly different way.
posted
TSN: I think it's the same in most countries or languages that people accept foreigners or immigrants who have not yet managed to pronounce everything correctly - well, maybe except for France where they talk even faster once they notice your French isn't very good
Anyway, I wouldn't compare this to the pronounciation of single foreign words, especially names. In Germany, for instance, no one cared about the pronounciation of foreign words a couple of decades ago, which one can notice in old movies. Nowadays, everyone seems to be keen on pronouncing everything correctly, as if it's a matter of honor. But especially from the TV news one may expect that. Well, you may go on calling me "Burnd Snyder". :-)
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