Why don't non-Roman script languages Anglicize proper nouns in writing English?

[Sean]

It seems to make no sense using English letters to describe Korean (for instance) sounds: although other European languages use the Roman script to form sounds not present in English, those languages are entirely written in the Roman in the first place, whereas Korean isn't.

Koreans are trying to spell only their names, including placenames on roadsigns, in English lettering, but English speakers cannot make the sounds in the names, so surely there is no point trying to keep them and creating these letter sequence conventions for them (which are mostly illogical and unsuitable anyway because they're not so familiar with the language), there being better alternatives: they could just place Korean characters at that point in the writing if they have to insist for some reason on the original sound.

Why not just drop the Korean sounds foreign to English and Anglisize the names, altering the sound so it's pronouncable in English sounds only, approximating the name; the only purpose for keeping the original name sounds might be in English communication between Korean speakers- which is unnecessary when they can speak to each other in their own language.

Roman scripted non-English languages transliterate proper nouns into Anglized equivalents and non-Roman ones should do likewise...

(The capital city Seoul for example is supposed to represent the particular 'eh' sound rather than just saying 'Sole' as English speakers prounounce it.)

[imperfection]

It seems to make no sense using English letters to describe Korean (for instance) sounds: although other European languages use the Roman script to form sounds not present in English, those languages are entirely written in the Roman in the first place, whereas Korean isn't.

Koreans are trying to spell only their names, including placenames on roadsigns, in English lettering, but English speakers cannot make the sounds in the names, so surely there is no point trying to keep them and creating these letter sequence conventions for them (which are mostly illogical and unsuitable anyway because they're not so familiar with the language), there being better alternatives: they could just place Korean characters at that point in the writing if they have to insist for some reason on the original sound.

Why not just drop the Korean sounds foreign to English and Anglisize the names, altering the sound so it's pronouncable in English sounds only, approximating the name; the only purpose for keeping the original name sounds might be in English communication between Korean speakers- which is unnecessary when they can speak to each other in their own language.

Roman scripted non-English languages transliterate proper nouns into Anglized equivalents and non-Roman ones should do likewise...

(The capital city Seoul for example is supposed to represent the particular 'eh' sound rather than just saying 'Sole' as English speakers prounounce it.)

You ask too many questions, Sean.

[Maciek]

Roman scripted non-English languages transliterate proper nouns into Anglized equivalents

They do?? Why would they? I see no possible logical explanation...?

[Sean]

They do?? Why would they? I see no possible logical explanation...?

French or German when writing in English will write their country or city names in the English versions of those names (Germany not Deutschland or whatever)- because they're writing in that language.

So why don't non-Roman scripted language speakers do the same? They get confused somewhere along the line because they're switching to another script... If there are no established names of the foreign language proper nouns, they need to be created in Anglicized form so English speakers can pronounce them.

Imperfection, yes questions are my downfall. I happen to be human, not a programmable robot though...

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

So why don't non-Roman scripted language speakers do the same? They get confused somewhere along the line because they're switching to another script... If there are no established names of the foreign language proper nouns, they need to be created in Anglicized form so English speakers can pronounce them.

Two complicating factors:

1. Speakers of language A never create variants of their own proper names for speakers of language B, C, etc. The speakers of those other languages do it instead.

2. If somehow rule 1 gets broken - should speakers of Korean also create variants in other foreign languages for the benefit of those speakers? English isn't the only major language in the world, you know.

An item of trivia: the Cyrillic transliteration of the Dear Leader's name, Kim Jong Il, comes out as Kim Chen Ir (Ким Чен Ир).

[Sean]

Spitvalve

Two complicating factors:

1. Speakers of language A never create variants of their own proper names for speakers of language B, C, etc. The speakers of those other languages do it instead.

A-language speakers should create them when they're writing in the B-language. You see, the only time they write in Roman script is when they're writing English. They don't write to each other in Roman script in their language. So why are they trying to keep the pronunciation of their proper nouns- in some balmy manufactured vowel new vowel formation, hitherto unknow in English.

2. If somehow rule 1 gets broken - should speakers of Korean also create variants in other foreign languages for the benefit of those speakers? English isn't the only major language in the world, you know.

That's a fair point, but I think yes- because they're purloining those languages' writing systems (even if other European languages use Roman as well as English). If you write in Italian you use its words for proper nouns of your country, and if they don't exist you should form words that don't go beyond that language's set of sounds that defines it. Otherwise its just arrogance, and for no purpose: if you want to say the noun in your phonetics you should be speaking your own language throughout.

[Maciek]

French or German when writing in English will write their country or city names in the English versions of those names (Germany not Deutschland or whatever)- because they're writing in that language.

Forget I asked. I thought what you meant was a situation where Germans would be calling Germany Germany (and not Deutschland) when writing in German!

So, coming back to the original question, who cares what foreigners speaking English do? They're not the native speakers of the language, it's quite obvious their usage won't be perfect.

Incidentally, I think it's the other way around: it's the English who use English versions of French or German place names, not the French or German. Because the French or German... er, usually speak French or German (most of the time).

[Sean]

Maciek, okay. What gets my goat in this stuff is creeping relativism and the dumb notion that any interpretation of English is as good as another, when it's not just a dialect but an unwitting violation of underlying logic that robs it of meaning.

Foreigner speakers' blithe reformations of the language bring it down to their limited idea of its richness and sophistication: many many foreign speakers' languages aren't as complex as English and its power and flexibility is unknown to and unsuspected by them...

[Diletante]

Your views are too anglocentric, Sean.

When non-Roman script languages transliterate into Roman script their main concern is of course to retain the original sounds of their language. Merely proposing that a romanization system should "drop sounds foreign to the English speaker" is chauvinistic and politically incorrect in the extreme. Those roadsigns and proper names are going to be read by millions of Spanish, French, Italian, Icelandic, Hungarian, etc. speakers, you know. Why shouldn't they drop sounds that don't exist in Czech?

Which is not to say that a system based on English phonology can't work, as long as it retains all of the original sounds. Take, for example, Japanese. They have two major romanization systems: the Hepburn, based on English phonology and Kunrei-siki, based on Japanese phonology. Hepburn is more popular because it's more intuitive to the foreign Japanese learner (even if they're not English speakers. I, as a Spanish speaker find Hepburn much more intuitive), AND it doesn't "drop" any of the Japanese sounds. For example, "sushi" is Hepburn. In Kunrei-siki it would be "susi", and both are pronounced the same way (the Japanese way).

Roman scripted non-English languages transliterate proper nouns into Anglized equivalents and non-Roman ones should do likewise...

This is wrong by definition. You can't transliterate Roman script into Roman script. The "English versions" of proper names are not transliterations, but names that evolved differently from the same root OR from a different root. Germany comes from the Latin word Germania, Deutschland comes from Old High-German diutisc and Alemania (how we call it in Spanish) come from the Alamanni tribe.

But these names have different spelling due to historical reasons. Nowadays names are pretty much set in stone. Otherwise, why in the world do we write Dvořák (even if we omit the accent marks), whose pronunciation is anything but intuitive? Or, to keep it with place names, Heidelberg?

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The bottom line is that we can't force non-Roman script languages to "drop sounds" for the sake of other languages when romanizing. That is the other languages' problem, see? 

[Sean]

tanuki, thanks for that.

When non-Roman script languages transliterate into Roman script their main concern is of course to retain the original sounds of their language.

No it isn't- the main concern is to be understood in the other script. Why should they be concerned about retaining their original sounds? If the French want to say Londres for London, that's fine by me, to use an reverse example.

Merely proposing that a romanization system should "drop sounds foreign to the English speaker" is chauvinistic and politically incorrect in the extreme.

Of course this should be done: English speakers (or the vast majority) cannot make sounds outside their own language. Why try make them do this???

Those roadsigns and proper names are going to be read by millions of Spanish, French, Italian, Icelandic, Hungarian, etc. speakers, you know. Why shouldn't they drop sounds that don't exist in Czech?

Because though those roadsigns indeed have only the proper names on them, the intention is absolutely to write in English, not just in roman script (and they'd never even have heard of those other languages let alone understand they also use roman).

You're getting confused between the foreigners writing in English and writing in roman script. The are emphatically trying to write in English. The other languages you mention can use roman as howsoever they use it because they already use it- it's their script! But Korean for instance is just transliterating into English- the international lingua franca.