双语:那些长长的外国人名 你是怎么读的?

　　近日，美国超越西班牙，成为世界上第二大西语国家，紧随墨西哥之 后。然而2015年，亚利桑那州的双语新闻主播瓦妮莎·鲁伊斯因为在英语电视节目上用西语腔读出西语词而受到公开的批评。她为自己辩解时坚称，她是“根据 它们本来的读音”来读出这些词语的。她还说：“改变也许不易。”

　　With striking inconsistency， domestic English-language broadcasters—and some listeners—are making the change Ruiz recommends： attempting international place names with a local accent. Americans， famous for butchering foreign words （EYE-rak， EYE-ran）， are trying to globalize their speech by saying words like Chile， Niger， and Pakistan with attempted Spanish， French， and Urdu accents.

　　国内的英语广播公司——以及一些听众——正一反常态地在按照鲁伊斯的建议做出改变：尝试带地方口音来读国际地名。以粗暴对 待外国词汇（伊拉克读成埃拉克，伊朗读成埃朗）而著称的美国人正试图在讲话时与国际接轨，尝试用西语、法语和乌尔都语的腔调读出“智利”、“尼日尔”和 “巴基斯坦”等词。

　　Listening to the radio， non-Spanish speakers might need a moment to understand that CHEE-lay refers to a country. “Chili¹ is the food， chili is c-h-i-l-i—it is incorrect，” says Ximena Aliaga， of the Chilean Mission to the United Nations. “It sounds more sophisticated to pronounce it correctly.” She explains that the switch to CHEE-lay was an unintended consequence of the highly publicized 2010 mine collapse² in Chile， recently dramatized in the controversially English-language film The 33.

　　在收听广播时，不说西语的人可能需要点时间才能明白“智雷”指的是一个国家。联合国智利代表团的希梅娜·阿利亚加说：“这是 不正确的：辣椒是食品，辣椒的拼写是chili（英语中辣椒与智利发音相同——译者注）。读对了的话听起来要高深一些。”她解释说，改成“智雷”这个读音 是2010年广受舆论关注的智利矿难不经意间造成的，那次矿难最近还被拍成了有争议的英语电影《33名矿工》。

　　Changes in pronunciation often follow current events， according to Mark Memmott， National Public Radio standards and practices editor. When a location is in the spotlight³， people reexamine how they say it. After correspondent Corey Flintoff weighed in while covering the Ukrainian revolution， NPR decided⁴ that Kiev was KEE-yev instead of Kee-YEV. That was December 9， 2013.

　　全国公共广播电台标准和规范编辑马克·梅莫特说，读音的变化往往紧跟时事。当一个地点处于聚光灯下时，人们便会重新审视这个地 点怎么读。记者科里·弗林托夫在报道乌克兰革命时发声以后，全国公共广播电台决定，基辅的发音是“基辅”（重音在前——译者注），不是“基辅”（重音在后 ——译者注）。那是2013年的12月9日。

　　“A subtle change to get it right is not going to confuse an American audience，” Memmott says.

　　梅莫特说：“为了正音而进行的微调不会让美国观众听得摸不着头脑。”

　　But can the average citizen be expected to speak properly accented Ukrainian， Scottish， or Spanish？ Anatoly Liberman， a professor and linguist⁵ at the University of Minnesota， thinks not. “Most people do not know the correct pronunciation of foreign names， and if they did they wouldn't be able to imitate it because that would require mastery of foreign phonetics，” he says. “When you begin to do it， you have to ask yourself how far you are going to pursue this path. Should Paris become Pair-EE？”

　　但普通人能不能正确发出带地方口音的乌克兰语、苏格兰语或西班牙语呢？明尼苏达大学的语言学家阿纳托利·利伯曼教授认为 做不到。他说：“大多数人不知道外国名字的正确发音，即使知道，他们也模仿不了，因为这要求掌握外语发音。如果你要这样做，你就得自问这条路能走多远。帕 里斯

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