While Anglos and Westerners usually at least try to pronounce, say, Japanese names right, they don’t even bother with Slavic/Eastern European ones, especially the ones with Cyrillic letters in them, which means that they end up writing the names ending with ‘ić’, as ‘ich’, and pronounce it with K. For example, if the last name is ‘Jovanović’, they’ll write it ‘Jovanovich’ and pronounce it ‘Jovanovik’.

There are names such as Ivan, Bela or Vera, which get pronounced as Ajvan, Beyla or Veyra instead of properly and of course Stalin being pronounced as Stalin instead of Staljin.

Then DimitrescU, if I have to hear it pronounced without U one more time, I’m going to lose it… They keep saying it without U, which just makes it sound French almost as if it’s Dimitresque, how hard is it to pronounce it with U?

Then the last name Ćertić, they write it as Certic or Sertic, which is completely wrong.

And the one I saw most recently, Miloch or Milosh instead of Miloš, it’s one of the most common names in Serbia and I see it frequently written like that for some goddamn reason.

So, why is it so hard for Westoids to at least try to pronounce and write Eastern European names correctly while being able do it accurately for Japanese ones which are miles harder?

  • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    6 days ago

    an added complication is that there are tons of eg americans with slavic last names that also dont know (nor care) how it’s pronounced in the original, they have their own american pronunciations now. like steven baczek, who pronounces it like “basic”.

    what are you gonna do, tell people they’re mispronouncing their own name?