riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (11/22/83)
Have you ever noticed this? Most newscasters and, worse, most foreign
correspondents can't pronounce German even though they think they can.
This occurred to me today as I listened to several mispronounce the
German word for parliament, "Bundestag". The correct pronunciation is
"Boon-dess-tahk". What they tended to say was "Boon-deh-shtahgg", just
what you'd expect from someone who'd been given a crash course in German
pronunciation but didn't really speak the language. Of course, the
difference is morphological, meaning that you have to really know what
the word means in order to be able to tell: "Bundestag" is a compound
word ("bundes"+"tag"); the usual "s + t => sht" rule doesn't work across
word boundaries.
Question: are reporters for the U.S. media working in Europe generally
expected to speak the language(s)? If so, what I heard today leads me
to believe some of them have been fooling their bosses.
The big exception: NPR's Susan Stamberg (who isn't even a correspondent,
just an anchorperson) said "Bundestag" like she'd grown up speaking
German. Did she?
----
Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
riddle@ut-sally.UUCPbprice@bmcg.UUCP (12/01/83)
Just a little added information: When the wire services carry a story
containing one of those words that is hard for the Americanese to dope
out, they include a sort of phonetic pronunciation. I believe it is up
to the wire-service editor, then, to choose between (boon-dess-tahk) and
(boon-deh-shtahg). As to networks--I don't know. Interesting question.
--
--Bill Price uucp: {decvax!ucbvax philabs}!sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice
arpa:? sdcsvax!bmcg!bprice@nosc