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25
Linguists’ names
It can sometimes be difficult to know how to pronounce the names of individual
linguists, and this can be awkward, especially if you are presenting a seminar
or conference paper. However, giving pronunciations raises a number of questions:
for non-English names, should a pronunciation in English be given, or a
pronunciation in the source language? Should we use the version the linguists
themselves use, or should we use a standard version frequently heard? How
many foreign names should be included on any such list, particularly if they
are pronounced as expected in the language concerned? Do we need to worry
about first names as well as surnames?
There is a related problem with the sex of some linguists. This is particularly
true for those who publish using only their initials or those who have
names which are not widely recognised by English speakers: names of
Chinese, Finnish, Japanese, Korean origins and many more, for example,
but also sometimes names from closer to home of Celtic or Scandinavian
origin.
This last problem is too large to be dealt with comprehensively here, but
the matter of pronunciation can be broached. In table 25.1 are the surnames
of a number of linguists, along with a pronunciation of that name where it
may not be obvious to the English-speaking reader. The pronunciation is
given as it can be used by a monoglot Anglophone. Indications of gender are
given as well. It is assumed that readers of these names speak English and are
familiar with English names, so that Philip Carr, for example, does not require
an entry.
Any list of this kind is problematic: some quite standard names can be mispronounced
on occasions, and with many foreign names all one really needs to
know is whether it is pronounced with an anglicised pronunciation or not,