I’d Like to Displace a Vowel.

I talked to a woman today who, literally, made my ears hurt.

What was worse, she had this Russian accent, spoke 50miles a minute, and I understood three out of ten words she was telling me.  It sounded something like this “askfjas;dklfasjdfkjCheeseburgeraskdjfhas;d   askdjf;askldfjasDucksauceljalksdfj;asldfElmer Fuddyakjklajsdl;fkjas” Imagine that, plus a sound similar to nails on a chalkboard.  My ears, literally hurt, and I was turning the volume down as much as I could.

Translating foreign language into our language, is phonetically challenging.  Russian names and words, in particular, do not translate well into the English language, where you have more constants the vowels, and even pronouncing it in English, you still have sound like your spitting.  You don’t make that R sound right, well, you’re going to be ridiculed in having to repeat that rolling R sound.  Instead of pronouncing the difficult name, I just spell it out.  It saves me less time if I spell out that 20 letter last name, then try to pronounce it.

Another popular one is where there are letters in there, but they are silent.  You add two letters together, to make it sound like another letter in the alphabet.  The French language is notorious of having names, translated into English, and thinking, OK, that doesn’t sound like Fonverg, and it’s really spell Phvonenbvergh.  The more letters you can cram in there, and the more silent they are, the more chances you are going to screw it up, and be another three minutes late getting out on time.  From the extreme of pronouncing every extra letter in the alphabet, to the next extreme of not pronouncing every letter in the alphabet and tricking the brain that three letters together, mean one letter.  I wonder if the French invented algebra?  Too many letters, not enough sense.

Another favorite of mine that I can never figure out is, the translation from symbols to Arabic lettering.  Who decided X was going to be in the popular translation of most Chinese names?  Its like the translators around the world had a bet, and the translators of the Asain languages, lost, they got to use the leftover letters we don’t use all the time in our daily language.  X, Y, Z, Lets be nice and since the Russian’s don’t really use these letters all that much, we’ll let you use an occaisional letter in the middle of the alphabet.  A’s are off limits for anyone claiming, of course.  No one wants to use the B’s. 

The only place you here the B’s being richly spoken about is when Robert turns into “Bob”.  You go into Texas and you hear ”Bubba” enter the conversation every five minutes, and you start to think its a type of drink, or a compliment on the weather.  My favorite, is when Richard, is nicknamed “Dick.” Where the heck did this come from?  Someone names their poor kid, Harold Richard Johnson, and he grows up being taunted “Harry Dick Johnson.”  Its bad when people start nicknaming people.  This poor kid, told everyone to call him Harry, and they found out his middle name was Richard, and Oh boy, they went to town on him.  True story.  And how on Earth did they get “Peggy” out of “Margaret.”  Was there a Pirate named Margaret who walked around with a peg, so they called her “Peggy?”  That’s got to be the anti-French name.  Finding nicknames and letters that aren’t even in the the name.

Then you have, what I like to call, “Letter displacement.”  The “R” in some states, such as the Midwest and parts of Montana, where we “Warsh the clothes.”  My Mom said “Warsh.”  To this day, if I wasn’t taught in school, to say “Wash,” I’d be doing that same displacement thing.  You go to the East Coast, and you have “New Joysey.”  Its like the “R” decided to take a trip to the Midwest and decided, “Ahh screw you, you like your vowels to much.  I’m sitting right in the middle of New Jersey, and you happen to just, pronounce right around me.  New Joysee.  I’m having a new, joy, see.  Being up where I’m respected.  Up north.  Where they include me, in the middle, of ‘wash’.  See.  I’m not last.  Or worst, not pronounced.  Only by those sweet Russian kids that like to pronounce every single letter in the alphabet.  And in some languages, I get to rolled.  So, “R” to you too.  Include me in, and not pronounce me.  Ha.”

If our Alphabet could talk.