Baldacci

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How's the name pronounced?

I think it would be /bQ:l"dA:tSi:/ or /bA:l"dA:tSi:/ in American English. (Are you familiar with IPA and X-SAMPA? If not, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA .)

So Baldatsi, in short?
Dude that's a whole new class I have to take but thanks for passing it along.

No, more like "ball-DAH-chee". Again, you really have to familiarize yourself with IPA/X-SAMPA. :)

"ball-DAH-chee"

THAT'S what I'd thought, based on Starbucks' Frappuccino.
But I had the first part of his name wrong tho. Pronounced it "bal" instead of "ball."
Oh, I don't think there is any way in hell I could pull that off. That's why I like dictionary.com because its pronunciation key is actually sane and it avoids using gibberish for the most part ;o)

<I think it would be /bQ:l"dA:tSi:/ or /bA:l"dA:tSi:/ in American English.>

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying this is how Americans would pronounce it? If it is an Italian name (which it appears to me to be), then isn't how Italians pronounce it more relevant?

You may not have noticed this, "ANother Guest", but this is the English forum, not the Italian forum.

<<Are you saying this is how Americans would pronounce it?>>

Yes, of course.

<<If it is an Italian name (which it appears to me to be), then isn't how Italians pronounce it more relevant?>>

No. My impression was that Choose was probably talking about John Baldacci, the governor of Maine. (He's the only Baldacci that I've ever heard of.)

>>(He's the only Baldacci that I've ever heard of.) <<
C'mon dude, that's very hurtful. This guy's my favorite :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Baldacci

>>You may not have noticed this, "ANother Guest", but this is the English forum, not the Italian forum. <<

lol Good point.

Italian names call for Italian remedies... It's not good to sound the ignorant foreigner!

What the hell did you just say?

I think Caspian meant that we should pronounce Italian names just as they're pronounced in Italy, so you don't strike Italians as an ignorant foreigner. This makes absolutely no sense when you're talking about Italian-Americans, as Choose said he is.

Rex said:
<You may not have noticed this, "ANother Guest", but this is the English forum, not the Italian forum.>

Thjen why are we discussing the pronunciation of an Italian word?

Lazar said:
<No. My impression was that Choose was probably talking about John Baldacci, the governor of Maine. (He's the only Baldacci that I've ever heard of.)>

Just because he's an American doesn't mean that his name isn't Italian. It seems to me that the correct order of relevance for how to pronounce John Baldacci's name is:

1. How John Baldacci pronounces it
2. How Italians pronounce it
3. How Americans pronounce it

It would be descriptivism run amok to say that American pronunciation takes precedence over its country of origin. There are no countries named "Chili", "Columbia", or "Casta Rica", nor is there any region of the US named "Porto Rico", and presenting those as the "correct" pronunciations is absurd. "Acceptable", maybe. But not "correct".

If it were important to me, I would call the office of the governor and find out.

<<Then why are we discussing the pronunciation of an Italian word?>>

We're not discussing it *as an Italian word*, we're discussing it as a name. And considering that we've established that Choose was thinking about David Baldacci, and that this is in the English forum, we're discussing it specifically as a name within an anglophone context.

<<Just because he's an American doesn't mean that his name isn't Italian. It seems to me that the correct order of relevance for how to pronounce John Baldacci's name is:

1. How John Baldacci pronounces it
2. How Italians pronounce it
3. How Americans pronounce it>>

Wrong. We've established that it's David Baldacci and not John Baldacci, but the same issues would apply. David Baldacci is an English-speaking person from an English-speaking country, so the way Italians would pronounce his name is completely irrelevant. The correct order would be:

1. How David Baldacci pronounces it
2. How Americans pronounce it

John Wells discussed a similar case on his blog ( http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog0704.htm ), in which newscasters, attempting to be authentic to German pronunciation, pronounced the name "Richter" (in the phrase "Richter Scale") with a German palatal fricative, [C]. But in fact, the Richter in question was American and would not have pronounced his name that way. Pronouncing the name of a native anglophone as if it were a foreign-language name, in contradiction to the way the person themselves pronounces it, is not only pretentious, it's downright incorrect. The preferences of the individual themselves should take precedence: some individuals do prefer to retain a more foreign pronunciation of their name, in which case we should do so; but in general, native anglophones with Italian or German names, for example, pronounce them using a conventionalized nativized pronunciation.

David Baldacci says on his own website that his name is pronounced "ball-DA-chee" (which is exactly what I had suggested), so I can confidently tell you that using a hyperforeign pronunciation would be *incorrect*.

<<It would be descriptivism run amok to say that American pronunciation takes precedence over its country of origin. There are no countries named "Chili", "Columbia", or "Casta Rica", nor is there any region of the US named "Porto Rico", and presenting those as the "correct" pronunciations is absurd. "Acceptable", maybe. But not "correct".>>

I'm afraid the ship has already sailed on that one. English, like most if not all languages, generally nativizes or semi-nativizes the names of foreign countries. Each of those countries has a standard, nativized pronunciation in English that is effectively universal. These pronunciations *are* correct, to the extent that dictionary-based standards serve as our guide for correctness: they are universally listed in dictionaries, and they are universally preferred even in formal and journalistic contexts. "Cuba", for example, has a single, standard and universal pronunciation in English: /"kju:b@/. To pronounce it in a hyperforeign manner as /"ku:b@/ or /"kuba/ would not only be pretentious, it would be *wrong* on no less an authority than Cambridge University: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?dict=CLD2&key=HW*16712&ph=on . As for your contention that we're renaming these countries by using nativized pronunciations ("Chili", "Casta Rica"), that's patently false: you're confusing orthography with phonology.

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