[milesrout]

Fellow Kiwi? The tone of your comment makes it sound to me like you disagree with me but I agree with everything you are saying.

I am usually a traditionalist but on this one I think the tradition to follow is the English one. I prefer the traditional English pronunciation of Latin (so "caveat" is "kay-vee-it"). Hell, I would prefer if we still nativised foreign loanwords and names: Saint Peter wasn't called "Peter" obviously, but I don't speak Greek or Aramaic or whatever. Peking isn't what the Chinese call it but neither is "Bayzhing" which is how English people pronounce Beijing, and so on. Plus now "Peking duck" doesn't make any sense...

(grumble)

[robocat]

From Christchurch. I was attempting to take the mick out of myself actually. I'm so humble.

Opinions on language are often subconscious status signaling. And too often people incorrect other people with the pretentions of displaying intelligence but actually displaying ignorance (oooooo judgy!). I fight the tendency within myself.

We end up with a half-assed attempt to be cultured for subconscious reasons, and it is often unappreciated by others.

I have become a weird rotator.

> Peking

My examples are Cristóbal Colón (Christophorus Columbus) and Pirata Drake (I didn't understand who it was when I first heard it). I've wondered how English names get mashed in Asian languages (especially Mandarin).

Did you notice the Wikipedia entry:

  there is also widespread spoken use of the term in the opposite sense to refer denigratingly to elites that is common among middle-class and lower income people in Australia, ...

That calls to my love of the antipodes and I fear I'm going to rewire my brain to discorrect myself.

[thaumasiotes]

> I've wondered how English names get mashed in Asian languages (especially Mandarin).

詹妮弗·安妮斯顿 zhān nī fú ān nī sī dùn [Jennifer Aniston]

[for approximations that make sense in English: zhan like "John"; ni like "knee"; fu like "foo", an like "on", si like "sick" without the K at the end of the syllable, dun like... it begins with "dw", the vowel is as in "book", then it ends with N. If pinyin were more regular, dun would be spelled "dwen".]

圣文森特和格林纳丁斯 shèng wén sēn tè hé gé lín nà dīng sī [Saint Vincent and the Grenadines]

[圣 shèng and 和 hé are translations, not sound equivalents, of the English words "saint" and "and".

The vowel "e" in the first six syllables is best approximated by the vowel of the English word "book". As before, the vowel written "i" in "lin" and "ding" is the English FLEECE vowel, and the vowel of "si" is different, more like KIT.

The consonants should be intuitive to you, except that the W in "wen" might sound more like a W or like a V depending on the whims of the speaker.]

[thaumasiotes]

> I prefer the traditional English pronunciation of Latin (so "caveat" is "kay-vee-it").

...That's not an example of the traditional English pronunciation of Latin. The traditional English pronunciation of Latin caveat would have /kæ/ (TRAP vowel) in the first syllable, not /keɪ/ (FACE vowel).

> when a vowel is followed by a single consonant (or by a cluster of p, t, c/k plus l, r) and then another vowel [...]

> [such a vowel bearing stress in any syllable other than the penultima] is closed and the vowel is short [unless the vowel is U].

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_English_pronunciat... )

/'ka.ʋɛ.at/ -> /'kæv.i.ət/