Ed Dawkins on Allahu Akhbar

[zooterkin]

Except it's not an English word

Well, my contention is that it is. In exactly the same way as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the English names of the supposed writers of the Gospels. Is 'Munich' an English word?

Sure, if you were starting from now, a more accurate transliteration would be used, as is the case for academics. However, we have several centuries of usage of the name.

Just two recent examples from the UK press:
For example.

The 45th President of the United States of America is landing for the first time in the UK as the Head of State of the United States.
You would think it was Genghis Khan or worse by the way Londoners in general are reacting. This is a man who has been democratically elected by the citizens of the UK’s closest ally – many of whom serve in the United States military sworn to defend the UK if ever attacked.

And from the Grauniad

The film is about the Mongol Derby, a brutally punishing 1,000-kilometre endurance race across Mongolia, recreating Genghis Khan’s 13th-century horse-messenger trail.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Well, my contention is that it is. In exactly the same way as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the English names of the supposed writers of the Gospels.

Those are all English names following standard rules for how Greek/Graeco-Latin names have transformed into English. E.g. the ending of "Markous" is cut off to give "Mark". The shift in the pronunciation of "j" in e.g. John is a shift that post-dates the adoption of these names.

Have you met anyone named Genghis lately? Is it a word that follows widely applied rules for transforming Mongolian words into English? Was it a borrowing made long a go in an earlier form of English that made sense then, even if it seems far removed now? No?

Is 'Munich' an English word?

"Munich" derives from the Old or Middle High German "Munichen" ("by the Monks"). The -en is a descriptive ending, so it is typical for it to drop off. Hence, Munich is not an incoherent illogical bastardization of "München", it shares a common ancestor. It's a High German word adapted into English in a conventional manner.

 

[zooterkin]

Those are all English names following standard rules for how Greek/Graeco-Latin names have transformed into English. E.g. the ending of "Markous" is cut off to give "Mark". The shift in the pronunciation of "j" in e.g. John is a shift that post-dates the adoption of these names.

So, yes, they are English versions of the original names, not a straightforward transliteration.

Have you met anyone named Genghis lately? Is it a word that follows widely applied rules for transforming Mongolian words into English? Was it a borrowing made long a go in an earlier form of English that made sense then, even if it seems far removed now? No?

Irrelevant. English is not based on rules, and has taken words from many different languages at many different times. By usage, over centuries, Genghis Khan is the name, in English, of the Mongol chap with the horde. Wikipedia would seem to agree with me, for what it's worth.

"Munich" derives from the Old or Middle High German "Munichen" ("by the Monks"). The -en is a descriptive ending, so it is typical for it to drop off. Hence, Munich is not an incoherent illogical bastardization of "München", it shares a common ancestor. It's a High German word adapted into English in a conventional manner.

So, yes, an English word.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

And yet, all the supposed examples you provide follow consisten patterns, being senskble adaptions that have evolved with the English language, or are traceable to an older root word, rather than being garbled distortions like "Genghis", which is an outlier in a consistent trend of otherwise consistently transliterating Mongol titles/names. It's simply a poor way of writing it.

Honestly, you might as well argue that we should call the Muslim prophet "Baphometh", because that's his English name, 'mirite?

 

[zooterkin]

And yet, all the supposed examples you provide follow consisten patterns, being senskble adaptions that have evolved with the English language, or are traceable to an older root word, rather than being garbled distortions like "Genghis", which is an outlier in a consistent trend of otherwise consistently transliterating Mongol titles/names. It's simply a poor way of writing it.

And yet...

 

[TubbaBlubba]

And yet...

What?

 

[zooterkin]

Genghis Khan remains the English name of the chap in question.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Genghis Khan remains the English name of the chap in question.

I have rebutted the validity of literally every example of a similar word you have presented, and presented strong reasons for rejecting "Genghis" as an appropriate representation of the name, consistent with current academic practice. I have presented examples of similar, once widely-used bastardizations you presumably reject (Baphometh) that according to your reasoning should still be used, if we take your case to have any normative value (and if it does not, you are not even trying to make a meaningful point at all as far as I am concerned.)

Literally all you can come up with is the ipsedixitism "it's the English name". Do you really think that in itself is such a strong case for usage? Is there any time where something should cease to be "the English name" (whatever substantive content this phrase denotes to you) for someting? Or is the very state of being "the English name" justification ipso facto?

 

[zooterkin]

I have rebutted the validity of literally every example of a similar word you have presented, and presented strong reasons for rejecting "Genghis" as an appropriate representation of the name, consistent with current academic practice. I have presented examples of similar, once widely-used bastardizations you presumably reject (Baphometh) that according to your reasoning should still be used, if we take your case to have any normative value (and if it does not, you are not even trying to make a meaningful point at all as far as I am concerned.)

Literally all you can come up with is the ipsedixitism "it's the English name". Do you really think that in itself is such a strong case for usage? Is there any time where something should cease to be "the English name" (whatever substantive content this phrase denotes to you) for someting? Or is the very state of being "the English name" justification ipso facto?

It’s not me you have to convince, but the majority of the English-speaking population of the UK, to my knowledge, not to mention the US, probably, who in defiance of your logic continue to use the name Genghis Khan. I’m not arguing that it’s better, only that it is.

The examples I provided are not meant to be exact comparisons, but they are examples of the English name being different, however arrived at, not a phonetic representation of the original which is what you seemed to be arguing for initially. I’m not a philologist, but I would be surprised if Genghis Khan is unique as a name in not following the rules when it arrived in English.

 

[theprestige]

I have rebutted the validity of literally every example of a similar word you have presented, and presented strong reasons for rejecting "Genghis" as an appropriate representation of the name, consistent with current academic practice. I have presented examples of similar, once widely-used bastardizations you presumably reject (Baphometh) that according to your reasoning should still be used, if we take your case to have any normative value (and if it does not, you are not even trying to make a meaningful point at all as far as I am concerned.)

Literally all you can come up with is the ipsedixitism "it's the English name". Do you really think that in itself is such a strong case for usage? Is there any time where something should cease to be "the English name" (whatever substantive content this phrase denotes to you) for someting? Or is the very state of being "the English name" justification ipso facto?

I think you're trying too hard to make a prescriptive rule out of an academic convention.

The fact that Genghis, Chingis, and Qingis are all readily interchangeable, with zero semantic loss, should tell you just how unimportant your preferred pronunciation and orthography actually are.

Also what exactly is your problem with romantic speakers romanizing foreign words?

 

[ddt]

I think you're trying too hard to make a prescriptive rule out of an academic convention.

The fact that Genghis, Chingis, and Qingis are all readily interchangeable, with zero semantic loss, should tell you just how unimportant your preferred pronunciation and orthography actually are.

Also what exactly is your problem with romantic speakers romanizing foreign words?

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Well, not "keep", but it has nothing to do with Romanticism.

Proper romanization takes account of the usual sounds associated with letters in the target language. Depending on whether the source I read is in English, Dutch or German I may read the name of the last Soviet leader as Gorbachev, Gorbatsjov or Gorbatschow, because the sound which is represented by "ch" as in English "church" is represented by other consonant combinations in other languages.

(You may note one other difference; the usual English transcription makes a glaring error here; see the wiki article on the Cyrillic letter yo).

Wiki informs me that the spelling "Gengis" came into English because Gibbon copied it from French 17th C. orientalist D'Herbelot.

I agree with Tubba that it's a poor transcription, and not only in English but also in French, for how it should be pronounced.

I agree with Zoot that, well, it's now been the usual way to write the name for over 200 years, and then it's the generally accepted way to write it.

 

[theprestige]

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Well, not "keep", but it has nothing to do with Romanticism. : rolleyes :

"Proper" romanization.

"Should" be pronounced.

But thank you, yes. I didn't quite use the right word, there, did I? You understood what I meant even so, but still.

And as it happens, I do know that romantic languages are not cognate with romantic novels. No need to roll your eyes at me. You're trying to correct a problem that doesn't actually exist.

 

[ddt]

"Proper" romanization.

"Should" be pronounced.

But thank you, yes. I didn't quite use the right word, there, did I? You understood what I meant even so, but still.

And as it happens, I do know that romantic languages are not cognate with romantic novels. No need to roll your eyes at me. You're trying to correct a problem that doesn't actually exist.

There's no such thing as "romantic" languages. Perhaps you mean Romance languages?

And yes, that word "Romance" is cognate with Romanticisim, but has a widely differing meaning. Cognate means that the words have the same etymological origin, not that they have the same meaning.

Likewise, "romanization" and "romance" are cognate, but they have different meanings. The latter applies to languages that developed from (vulgar) Latin, the former applies to rendering words from another script in the Latin script - which is not only used by all Romance languages, but also by all Germanic languages, about half of the Slavic languages and a lot more.

Maybe you can point out where I used the word "should" in my post? The object of romanization is to transcribe a word from a different script in such a way, that it intuitively evokes the right pronunciation:

Most romanizations are intended to enable the casual reader who is unfamiliar with the original script to pronounce the source language reasonably accurately. Such romanizations follow the principle of phonemic transcription and attempt to render the significant sounds (phonemes) of the original as faithfully as possible in the target language. The popular Hepburn romanization of Japanese is an example of a transcriptive romanization designed for English speakers.

 

[theprestige]

There's no such thing as "romantic" languages. Perhaps you mean Romance languages?

And yes, that word "Romance" is cognate with Romanticisim, but has a widely differing meaning. Cognate means that the words have the same etymological origin, not that they have the same meaning.

Likewise, "romanization" and "romance" are cognate, but they have different meanings. The latter applies to languages that developed from (vulgar) Latin, the former applies to rendering words from another script in the Latin script - which is not only used by all Romance languages, but also by all Germanic languages, about half of the Slavic languages and a lot more.

Maybe you can point out where I used the word "should" in my post? The object of romanization is to transcribe a word from a different script in such a way, that it intuitively evokes the right pronunciation:

Wow. Somehow I care even less than I did before.

At least you're not lecturing me on how to pronounce "Ghengis" or "akbar".

 

[ddt]

Or the whole, "it's not Bombay, it's Mumbai!" thing.

... except for the tiny little fact that Mumbai is the official name of the city:

By the late 20th century, the city was referred to as Mumbai or Mambai in Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Kannada and Sindhi, and as Bambai in Hindi.[50] The Government of India officially changed the English name to Mumbai in November 1995.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

... except for the tiny little fact that Mumbai is the official name of the city:

That's a weird case in itself though. It's possible that Mumbai is a back-rationalization of "bonne bay", the good bay, by association with a local goddess.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I agree with Zoot that, well, it's now been the usual way to write the name for over 200 years, and then it's the generally accepted way to write it.

... except of course among people who study the individual and language in question.

Reluctance to revise such matters is a poor aspect on how English is generally handled. IMO there's a degree of imperial chauvinistic heritage there - if it's widely said one way by English speakers it's proper, who cares about representing other languages faithfully?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

It’s not me you have to convince, but the majority of the English-speaking population of the UK, to my knowledge, not to mention the US, probably, who in defiance of your logic continue to use the name Genghis Khan. I’m not arguing that it’s better, only that it is.

Then why engage in the conversation if your only point was an obvious fact the equivalent of a google ngrams search? Yes, Genghis is widely used. There are also many reasons not to use it. That English-language countries balk at revising school curricula to address such matters is hardly a point in their favour, is it?

The examples I provided are not meant to be exact comparisons, but they are examples of the English name being different, however arrived at, not a phonetic representation of the original which is what you seemed to be arguing for initially. I’m not a philologist, but I would be surprised if Genghis Khan is unique as a name in not following the rules when it arrived in English.

They are different because their pronunciation has evolved concurrently with the rest of the English language. At one point, they were good-faith attempts to represent foreign names according to consistently applied rules, and over a long period of took on a life of their own.

That's not the case with Genghis. Nobody names their kid Genghis. Nobody thinks Genghis is anything but an attempt to render the regnal name of a 12th-century Mongol warlord in English. Just like Hulegu, Berke, Möngke, Ögedei, and so on. Which is why school curricula should be revised in accordance with academic usage.

But oh no, why should English speakers ever have to care about how foreign languages actually sound.

 

[Roboramma]

Then why engage in the conversation if your only point was an obvious fact the equivalent of a google ngrams search? Yes, Genghis is widely used. There are also many reasons not to use it. That English-language countries balk at revising school curricula to address such matters is hardly a point in their favour, is it?

Because usage is what defines language. The fact that Genghis is widely used in English shows that it's the actual English name of the person. That it's not a very good representation of how his name was actually said doesn't change that.

ETA: I think you may have a point regarding education: if school curriculums were to change the spelling in textbooks I think that would be a good decision. That's very different from expecting people to change the pronunciation in daily speech. If I say "Genghis Khan" to a friend they know what I mean. If I say "Chinghis" they'll give me a weird look, and while they'll probably figure it out it only makes communication more difficult. The purpose of language is communication of ideas, the medium in which it's expressed is really unimportant.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Because usage is what defines language. The fact that Genghis is widely used in English shows that it's the actual English name of the person.

Suppose we accept this assertion as true. What is its substantive content? What does it matter that "usage defines language? So wvat, if according to some standard we can slap the label "English-language name" on a particular word?

Because the only way I can find any substantive content in this labelling is if the point is to say, "all normative philology is meaningless, only descriptive discussion matters".

In this case, why engage at all in a discussion of normative philology?