Sauna

[Jukka Aho]

This interpretation overlooks those who think they are pronouncing your name just fine, but that you yourself have this thing akin to a speech impediment known as a Finnish accent which makes you stumble over the kk -- and that surely you will learn to pronounce your name better if they only have the patience to model it for you in English a sufficient number of times. [...] My wife's name is almost precisely as uncomplicated as your own. But some Americans are stopped dead in their tracks trying to imitate her pronunciation of it -- they hear there is something quite out of the ordinary (a double consonant in each name) but as though she were clicking in Xhosa they are unable to grasp what they just heard or to even try to imitate it. They literally stop in the middle of saying the name.

Heh. I can only imagine!

Stopping right on your tracks in the middle of the name is pretty much what you’re supposed to do with the Finnish double consonants, though:

Ju—(quickly prepare your vocal tract for the plosive k and stop the flow of air just before it actually comes out, then hold it... hold it... hold it... hold it... — the clock is ticking, you’re all sweaty from anticipation, beginning to black out — hold it... hold it... release!)—ka!

So many, in fact, that she registered a professional name that she uses with clients in order to avoid confusion and tangential, distracting discussions.

So it’s possible to register (?) a “professional name” which is not the same as the name in your passport? Interesting. Is such registration compulsary for practicing some profession in “official capacity” in the U.S.? I mean, as opposed to just using a stage name, a pen name, a nickname or some such?

What I actually want to know is if your wife is a professional wrestler, of course!

Still, when I say the word Paris in English, I pronounce it as English-speakers pronounce it.

Well, why wouldn’t you? That particular way of pronouncing ‘Paris’ can be thought of being the conventional English exonym for the Paris proper... even though in this case the spelling remains the same as in the original.

I can understand that some people feel it is only proper to pronounce a name according to the language they're speaking at the moment. And it's only a small step farther for them to assume that when speaking English, you'd say your name in English if only you could. I've known more than one university instructor in Finland to act that way.

Um, which way? Pronouncing their own (Finnish?) name the English way? Pronouncing your name the Finnish way?

(And honestly now, is it possible to believe that Achilles was killed by someone who talked and dressed like Maurice Chevalier? So what IS the correct pronunciation of the name?)

OK, a rhetorical question but still... Wikipedia to the rescue! “Ancient Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς, Akhilleus, pronounced [akʰillěu̯s]” I wonder how they reconstruct the “correct” pronuncation for such an ancient name, though...

(Take for example all the Chinese students who generally want Westerners to refer to them by a Western first name they have adopted for themselves for convenience reasons instead of teaching them to pronounce their actual name.)

I couldn't resist the absurdity of a Pizza Hut in Hong Kong, so I went in. The memory of Lefty and Dusty and Susy and Willa, all in their red gingham shirts, remains with me to this day.[/quote]
Speaking of Chinese names, I just encountered a website which referred to an old family acquiantance, originally born Chinese, who has since acquired Finnish citizenship, and found out he has taken a Finnish first name and retained his Chinese first name as his second name. The combination of a familiar Finnish name and a Chinese name appeared a bit funny at first sight but I can imagine it saves him the trouble of explaining his name over and over again while on the phone etc.

Of course, if you’re from a country which uses a non-Latin-based writing system, becoming a Finnish citizen means losing a bit of your original identity. They don’t accept hanzi in the Population Register Centre database...

[AldenG]

I meant, though, that Achilles was killed by Paris, who surely didn't pronounce the name/word as modern French do.

Name registration varies by state but is often accomplished by a doing-business-as registration in your city or county of business. There's little difference from a toiminimi -- though possibly some difference in picky details.

It's most common with women, who often continue to practice a licensed profession under their maiden name even after gaining a new last name through marriage. Of course it's still necessary to disclose your actual current name, not only to the courthouse but to your clients or patients. But for instance it isn't necessary to obtain new copies of diplomas or certificates for your office wall if your name changes through marriage or naturalization. It isn't vanity (alone!) that makes people in some professions keep those diplomas and certificates on the wall. If you advertise with a controlled abbreviation like CPA or MD (or if the actual business in which you engage requires such a license), you're required to keep the proof on display.

[AldenG]

I explain 'kk' with the example of black cow or black gum. People often don't realize what they know how to do; you just have to put it into the right context.

[onkko]

Sauna reminded me about this video, "actually dont go behind the sauna"

[AldenG]

What I actually want to know is if your wife is a professional wrestler, of course!

Close but not quite. She's a professional roller derby queen.

[CH]

Speaking of Chinese names, I just encountered a website which referred to an old family acquiantance, originally born Chinese, who has since acquired Finnish citizenship, and found out he has taken a Finnish first name and retained his Chinese first name as his second name. The combination of a familiar Finnish name and a Chinese name appeared a bit funny at first sight but I can imagine it saves him the trouble of explaining his name over and over again while on the phone etc.

Yep, my daughter has her name the same way. It is pretty common for adoptive parents to change the original first name of a child to be a middle name if the original name would be hard to pronounce. I don't think anybody who doesn't know Chinese would be able to write her name correctly from the pronounciation, and I think most would be intimidated to even try pronouncing it from just seeing it written.

An interesting (well, I find it interesting at least) loan word in English is... iceberg. As a Swedish speaker I just automatically translated it to Swedish (berg = mountain in Swedish), so it took quite some time before it suddenly occured to me that English speakers probably don't know what the "berg" part means. I conveniently realized this when I was an exchange student in the US, so off to ask the host parents what they thought it meant. They guessed it to be from the German word "burg" (well, it's pronounced the same way, so I can see why they thought so). I would have thought it would be a loanword from Swedish, as... well... it is written in the same way, but apparently it is from Dutch:

The word "iceberg" is a partial loan translation from Dutch ijsberg, literally meaning ice mountain, cognate to Danish Isbjerg, German Eisberg, Low Saxon Iesbarg and Swedish Isberg.

[Rosamunda]

It's most common with women, who often continue to practice a licensed profession under their maiden name even after gaining a new last name through marriage.

I have my passport, business, phone, ID etc everything in my maiden name (not especially by choice, it just happened that way because I never got round to changing my passport and in Finland your maistraatti registration has to concur with your passport). Anyway, to cut a long story short, it's a French name which I pronounced the French way for almost 50 years (was never a big problem in the UK) but I have recently started to pronounce it the Finnish way, eg in SOL, Filmtown or anywhere else where I exist in a database, simply so they can find me.

Talking of Frenchness. There was a thread on SalutFinlande a while back where posters were posting Finnish names which, when pronounced the Finnish way, sound like something completely different in French. An example being Teemu-Olli * which had them all creased up!

(T'es mou au lit)

[Karhunkoski]

Oh sweet Pascale

[Rob A.]

An interesting (well, I find it interesting at least) loan word in English is... iceberg. As a Swedish speaker I just automatically translated it to Swedish (berg = mountain in Swedish), so it took quite some time before it suddenly occured to me that English speakers probably don't know what the "berg" part means. I conveniently realized this when I was an exchange student in the US, so off to ask the host parents what they thought it meant. They guessed it to be from the German word "burg" (well, it's pronounced the same way, so I can see why they thought so). I would have thought it would be a loanword from Swedish, as... well... it is written in the same way, but apparently it is from Dutch:

The word "iceberg" is a partial loan translation from Dutch ijsberg, literally meaning ice mountain, cognate to Danish Isbjerg, German Eisberg, Low Saxon Iesbarg and Swedish Isberg.

Interesting...though I'm not fully convinced it would have come into English from Dutch.... Possible, yes...but coming from a Nordic language seems more plausible to me....the Vikings and all that.

I probably would have thought it had somehow come in from German....maybe through the Anglo-Saxon language... But I suppose these languages are all so close. Berg/Burg, seem to have the same ancient Germanic origin....indicating an elevated place....one form took the sense of a "mountain"/"hill"....the other form, "fortification"... Hills and mountains were places of such "fortification" in ancient times ...

[Bavarian]

Interesting...though I'm not fully convinced it would have come into English from Dutch....

Willem Barents springs to mind.

[Rob A.]

Interesting...though I'm not fully convinced it would have come into English from Dutch....

Willem Barents springs to mind.

Good point....I forgot about him.... And reading that article, it looks like he had more guts than brains....

[Tiwaz]

I meant, though, that Achilles was killed by Paris, who surely didn't pronounce the name/word as modern French do.

Name registration varies by state but is often accomplished by a doing-business-as registration in your city or county of business. There's little difference from a toiminimi -- though possibly some difference in picky details.

It's most common with women, who often continue to practice a licensed profession under their maiden name even after gaining a new last name through marriage. Of course it's still necessary to disclose your actual current name, not only to the courthouse but to your clients or patients. But for instance it isn't necessary to obtain new copies of diplomas or certificates for your office wall if your name changes through marriage or naturalization. It isn't vanity (alone!) that makes people in some professions keep those diplomas and certificates on the wall. If you advertise with a controlled abbreviation like CPA or MD (or if the actual business in which you engage requires such a license), you're required to keep the proof on display.

You need to be able to present paper stating name change though, or at least in some cases.

Wife and me bought an apartment together before getting married, and when selling it, she had to provide papers stating how she had changed her last name to be included with the shares which gave the ownership of the apartment. And proof has to be kept with them until shares lose their validity.

[raskarhu]

"Interesting...though I'm not fully convinced it would have come into English from Dutch.... Possible, yes...but coming from a Nordic language seems more plausible to me....the Vikings and all that.
"

Not plausible at all. Dutch has lent very much marine terminology to languages all over the world. Especially to Russian, French, English and the Scandinavian languages, not to forget Indonesian languages, Japanese, and so on. After all, Ducth was the language of one of the greates sea-faring nations ever in history...

Acrtually, there are more Dutch loanwords in Englsih than Englsih loanwoards in Dutch. Go figure

check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En ... tch_origin