By now, everybody knows that Doordarshan fired a newscaster last week for referring to the Chinese President Xi Jinping as Eleven Jinping. The country was shocked. Mainly because no one knew Doordarshan still had newscasters.
Logically, no reason why they shouldn’t be there. They’ve continued through Indira Gandhi, Rajiv, past Manmohan Singh, into our current premiership, in some parallel universe while we watched Arnab Goswami build himself a Roman circus. However, they’ve done away with the idea that anyone is watching. And when you do away with the idea that television is for watching, you can say anything really.
Perhaps the newscaster is right. There could indeed be ten other Mr Jinpings in China and surely that would suggest an eleventh one. Or indeed one in a sequence of thousands of Jinpings, of which His Excellency could indeed be the 11th, the fourth or the 54231st Jinping. Some complained that the error was not big enough to warrant a firing. It should be noted that had this error being committed in President Xi’s country, the firing would also be followed by the minor matter of being sentenced to death.
Of course, there’s the tedious issue of pronouncing international names in general. Impossible to fathom. For the deposed Libyan despot, is it Muameh Gaddafi, Muamar Quaddafi, Muqadma Haddafi, Mocha Caramel Toffee, Hafeez Contractor ‒ what is it?
Cannes (s silent, like an Spanish person saying can?), Cannes (s prominent, like the guy in Mahabharat?)
His Holiness The Dali Lama (Americans say it like that, where the first name sounds like a Jat gentleman pronouncing Delhi), The Dalai Lama (we say that, where Dalai rhymes with “malai”) – or do we say His Holiness the Dahli Lahhma, allowing the H to be said loudly, to impose the holiness of it all.
You never want to pronounce it His Holiness The Deli Lama. That’s probably a Buddhist grocery store in New York.
It is all a mess.
Then there’s the “abe” syllable problem. There’s Shinzou Abe (not like babe, but like “ab-e”, a colloquial Hindi street slang common before Bollywood fights, applicable here to the last names Dave or Raje). Also applicable to Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. Don’t pronounce it “Mu gave”. He’s not a very funny man and he might just take away some land from you.
I don’t know what Lord Macaulay was thinking when he told us Indians, English was the answer to everything. His language is mad.
I’m not getting into the Iranians. Someone at Doordarshan would jump out of a window, if they can still afford those and have them. The last one was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of which some bits may or may not be silent. In the words of the great philosopher Jay Z, say what?
So which bits does one say? We have to guess? Is it Ahmedina, Ahedihad, Etihad, Ahmedabad, the whole thing?
I’m beginning to understand a little about Iran now. No wonder there are so many revolutions. They have no idea what to call him. And also no wonder he imprisoned so many people. They just couldn’t get his name right and he didn’t help them with an answer. Maybe the current socio-political climate in West Asia would be very different if, when you met him, he just said, “You know what, call me Tony.”
Not being able to pronounce is one thing. Calling Premiere Xi, zye, understandable.
Eleven though?
Throwing numbers into mispronunciation is like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Unexpected. Then again, we did discover the zero, so we should have some leeway with the subsequent numbers that follow. We should at the very least be able to throw it into names. Instead of arguing about where Arunachal ends and China begins, (a mystery, nobody knows or ever will, like where great whales mate), we should negotiate on whether it is ok to drop in a few numbers in Chinese names.
I will end with the great name that will lead to no job loss. Easy to pronounce and sums up everything.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
That is his real name.
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Logically, no reason why they shouldn’t be there. They’ve continued through Indira Gandhi, Rajiv, past Manmohan Singh, into our current premiership, in some parallel universe while we watched Arnab Goswami build himself a Roman circus. However, they’ve done away with the idea that anyone is watching. And when you do away with the idea that television is for watching, you can say anything really.
Perhaps the newscaster is right. There could indeed be ten other Mr Jinpings in China and surely that would suggest an eleventh one. Or indeed one in a sequence of thousands of Jinpings, of which His Excellency could indeed be the 11th, the fourth or the 54231st Jinping. Some complained that the error was not big enough to warrant a firing. It should be noted that had this error being committed in President Xi’s country, the firing would also be followed by the minor matter of being sentenced to death.
Of course, there’s the tedious issue of pronouncing international names in general. Impossible to fathom. For the deposed Libyan despot, is it Muameh Gaddafi, Muamar Quaddafi, Muqadma Haddafi, Mocha Caramel Toffee, Hafeez Contractor ‒ what is it?
Cannes (s silent, like an Spanish person saying can?), Cannes (s prominent, like the guy in Mahabharat?)
His Holiness The Dali Lama (Americans say it like that, where the first name sounds like a Jat gentleman pronouncing Delhi), The Dalai Lama (we say that, where Dalai rhymes with “malai”) – or do we say His Holiness the Dahli Lahhma, allowing the H to be said loudly, to impose the holiness of it all.
You never want to pronounce it His Holiness The Deli Lama. That’s probably a Buddhist grocery store in New York.
It is all a mess.
Then there’s the “abe” syllable problem. There’s Shinzou Abe (not like babe, but like “ab-e”, a colloquial Hindi street slang common before Bollywood fights, applicable here to the last names Dave or Raje). Also applicable to Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. Don’t pronounce it “Mu gave”. He’s not a very funny man and he might just take away some land from you.
I don’t know what Lord Macaulay was thinking when he told us Indians, English was the answer to everything. His language is mad.
I’m not getting into the Iranians. Someone at Doordarshan would jump out of a window, if they can still afford those and have them. The last one was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of which some bits may or may not be silent. In the words of the great philosopher Jay Z, say what?
So which bits does one say? We have to guess? Is it Ahmedina, Ahedihad, Etihad, Ahmedabad, the whole thing?
I’m beginning to understand a little about Iran now. No wonder there are so many revolutions. They have no idea what to call him. And also no wonder he imprisoned so many people. They just couldn’t get his name right and he didn’t help them with an answer. Maybe the current socio-political climate in West Asia would be very different if, when you met him, he just said, “You know what, call me Tony.”
Not being able to pronounce is one thing. Calling Premiere Xi, zye, understandable.
Eleven though?
Throwing numbers into mispronunciation is like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Unexpected. Then again, we did discover the zero, so we should have some leeway with the subsequent numbers that follow. We should at the very least be able to throw it into names. Instead of arguing about where Arunachal ends and China begins, (a mystery, nobody knows or ever will, like where great whales mate), we should negotiate on whether it is ok to drop in a few numbers in Chinese names.
I will end with the great name that will lead to no job loss. Easy to pronounce and sums up everything.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
That is his real name.
