Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 February 18

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February 18

Japanese name check

Hi ,the top of article Naoki Kuwata states Naoki Kuwata (桑田 尚樹, Naoki Kuwata) is that correct, if so then presumably the article should be renamed...GrahamHardy (talk) 17:34, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

All three English renditions of the name, in your query and in the article, are identical. Is there something in the Japanese characters (which I cannot read) that raises a conflict? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.1.40 (talk) 22:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

My understanding is that articles about Japanese use Western name order (forename surname) but then include the Japanese form in brackets, normally in the reverse order (see for example Masaki Nashimoto) but this article has the same name order for both, so something is amiss, hence my query... GrahamHardy (talk) 00:46, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

GrahamHardy -- We go by "common name", and I don't think there's 100% consistency of name orders in Western usage referring to Japanese people. The Edogawa Ranpo article isn't at "Ranpo Edogawa" (that would destroy the pun!)... -- AnonMoos (talk) 06:30, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

But we also go by WP:NAMESORT which states that Western name order should be used for Japanese names. Is anybody able to tell me whether the transliteration of 桑田 尚樹 is 'Naoki Kuwata' or 'Kuwata Naoki', that is all I ask...GrahamHardy (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The "NAMESORT" policy is about ordering within categories, not really about choosing article titles (in fact, the bit about Toyohibiki Ryuta is telling you that the surname is first in that title).

The transliteration of the kanji is clearly "Naoki Kuwata" -- a reordering of the names to Kuwata Naoki would not fall under what is normally described as "transliteration"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:44, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

桑田 is Kuwata; 尚樹 is Naoki. If I'm right in thinking that "transliteration" means "change from one script to another", then the transliteration of 桑田尚樹 is "Kuwata Naoki". En:WP's MoS dictates that the order should be switched to "Naoki Kuwata". -- Hoary (talk) 13:40, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Brilliant, I am happy, I will tweak the article to match GrahamHardy (talk) 16:27, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

It should be Naoki Kuwata (桑田 尚樹, Kuwata Naoki)--Khajidha (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Khajidha's right, and this aspect of the article is now fixed. But -- although it's a language-unrelated matter, sorry -- GrahamHardy, what eludes me is a sign of notability (encyclopedic significance). Predictably, the ja:WP article is no better; it just has unsourced lists. -- Hoary (talk) 23:03, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

How vowels are taught to anglophones

The sound in some languages represented in the IPA as a lengthened e is taught to anglophones as the English long a as in say. Why?? The English sound in say is a diphthong; its IPA symbol is ei. Georgia guy (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Guy, you're such a tease! Would you like us to guess which languages and taught by whom? Henry^Flower 21:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

This question has many correct answers, including the accute-accented French e, the German long e, the letter eta in Classical Greek, and Zeire the Hebrew vowel sign. Georgia guy (talk) 21:14, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

And who teaches the sound in each of these languages as /eɪ/? Then we can look at the principles which each of these people used in choosing their presentation. Henry^Flower 21:53, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I took about 7-8 years worth of classroom instruction in French. Not one of the many teachers I had in all of that time taught me to say é as /eɪ/. Every single one of them said it /e/, which is correct. Now, for many years, I probably fucked that up horribly, and probably said /eɪ/ myself, being a terrible language learner. But I was not taught wrong. The teachers taught it correctly. If your teachers taught you differently, they were wrong. There is no other reasonable answer to your question. Proper language teachers will teach you how to speak a language properly. --Jayron32 20:05, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, have a look at Stéphane Mallarmé. Even if understood as purely descriptive, the presence of the "English" pronunciation seems to just admit defeat. I also recall having seen respellings of French words (shouldn't be done, that's for English) where é was represented as AY, as described by Georgia Guy, although I can't find an example now. --84.114.119.196 (talk) 20:30, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is on Mallarmé -- are you surprised that French names have different pronunciations in English? Henry^Flower 22:29, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm supporting Georgia Guy's statement: "The sound in some languages represented in the IPA as a lengthened e is taught to anglophones as the English long a as in say." This is what the IPA for an alleged "English" pronunciation of the name does ("alleged" because in the end it's just an imperfect rendering of the French pronunciation, due to the tendency of most native English speakers to diphtonguise long vowels). --84.114.119.196 (talk) 00:14, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Ah, then you're misunderstanding how languages work. When English takes a word (such as a name) from another language, the word receives an English pronunciation, which is frequently different from that in the original language (that's why in English you go to /ˈpæɹ.ɪs/ rather than /paʁi/). That's perfect English pronunciation, not imperfect French. It's not really relevant to Anglophones speaking other languages, which was Guy's original question. Henry^Flower 08:08, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Hey, I'm psychic - I knew that Paris was coming. I'd consider that an exonym, despite the identical spelling in English and French. But anyway, if you don't like my example, then leave it. --84.114.119.196 (talk) 08:35, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree with your point. For another discussion on English diphthongization of foreign monophthongs see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 30#How do you pronounce the surname Florescu?, especially the post of 20:23, 30 March 2011. --Theurgist (talk) 08:43, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Georgia_guy -- "Zere" seems to be mainly a German spelling (while "Zeire" is kind of a strange spelling) for the Hebrew diacritic in question. In "Teach Yourself (Biblical) Hebrew" by R.K. Harrison, he suggests it should be pronounced as in "obey" (2nd syllable). Don't ask me why he did that, but the book does not use much professional linguistics terminology, and was published in 1955 (and of course refers to a dead language)... AnonMoos (talk) 06:54, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The German alphabet goes "ah bay say day ay" with "e" having that long a sound. Are you asking why English diverged? Shrug. The Great English Vowel Shift might have had something to do with it. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 12:31, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

In German these are long monophthongs [beː, tseː, deː, eː], while the English long "a" sound, /eɪ/, is a diphthong in most varieties of the language. See above. --Theurgist (talk) 08:43, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

• OP is right that there is such phenomenon and it's everywhere, probably just not so much in classrooms. Think about language guides for tourists or pronunciation reference pages in dictionaries that don't use IPA. Of course, they can't be accurate because you have to respell with what you have. These works are not meant to be scientific. --94.134.89.191 (talk) 02:30, 23 February 2019 (UTC)