Re: French phonetics

From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 62694
Date: 2009-02-01

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Petr Hrubis <petr.hrubis@...> wrote:

> I don't see how any of the following matters,

I had premised mine was kind of a weekend joke :^)

> but as far as I know this is by far the best way to render the
> Russian names by means of French phonetics.

Isn't there really any practical way to avoid the constant shifting
of the stress to the last syllable in French transliterations or
transcriptions of foreign names/words (with the latter being
historically always treated as if they were French terms)? Or is
this the same case as that with the Japanese
transliteration "makudonarudo" for McDonald (etc.)?

I gave the example of Italian because we generally RECOGNIZE that
foreign words are subject to different phonetic rules when we try to
pronounce them. For instance, when an Italian reads the French name
François he does not pronounce it as <fran'kois>, although this
would be the "natural" pronunciation of it for us. On the contrary,
when a French utters my name, Francesco, he/she invariably
pronounces it as <'franse'sko>, as if it were a French word.

Are you saying that it would be impossible for the French to
pronounce Mme Carla Bruni's name with correctly applying the Italian
phonetic rules instead of the French ones (thus: <caR'la bRy'ni>)?

So goes for all other foreign names pronounced by native French
speakers, whether they are transliterated from a non-Roman script or
not. They are, to make ot clearer, treated as if they were
some "bizarre" French names. No effort is made to pronounce them
correctly.

Regards,
Francesco