FUJIMORI.

Comments

1. Anton Sherwood says

   December 24, 2002 at 10:12 pm

   In English we don’t (always) let our own spelling conventions rule our pronunciation of foreign names; why should they in Spanish?
2. language hat says

   December 26, 2002 at 5:15 pm

   Probably because English has such an opaque spelling system that we’re used to words not sounding like they look like they should sound; in Spanish, on the other hand, sounds are clearly indicated by the spelling, so there’s no tradition of pronouncing things in unusual ways.
3. language hat says

   December 27, 2002 at 10:39 am

   The Ogre defends unanglicized pronunciations here.
4. Alon Lischinsky says

   September 1, 2021 at 10:16 am

   Perhaps because “Fuji” /ˈfu.ʝi/ is familiar from geography, as well as from a number of brands (Fujitsu, Fujifilm and so on), I’ve always heard this pronounced /ˌfu.ʝiˈmo.ɾi/ in Argentina. (A quick look at recent news confirms that’s still the case.)
5. languagehat says

   September 1, 2021 at 10:43 am

   Good to know, thanks! I’ll say it that way with increased confidence.
6. Athel Cornish-Bowden says

   September 1, 2021 at 11:36 am

   I’d prefer to hear a Peruvian say it, if one can find one. Notice that the speaker pronounces Castillo in an obviously Argentinian way, and no Peruvian would say it like that. Peruvians, from the richest to the poorest, speak a very pure Spanish. I once saw a documentary film about shanty towns in Lima. One thing that struck me very forcibly is that when they interviewed people who lived in the most appalling conditions they spoke in ways that would put Chileans or Argentinians to shame.

   The name Fujimori (père) came up a lot on Chilean television news when I spent eight months in Santiago, and I’m pretty sure they pronounced the j in a Spanish way.
7. languagehat says

   September 1, 2021 at 11:46 am

   I’m pretty sure Peruvians say the j in a Spanish way, but I speak Argentine Spanish, not Peruvian, so I’m happy with Alon Lischinsky’s version.
8. Y says

   September 1, 2021 at 12:27 pm

   AC-B, what do you mean by “pure”, other than the y/ll distinction and pronouncing the esses?
9. Athel Cornish-Bowden says

   September 1, 2021 at 12:46 pm

   OK, I wasn’t happy with the “pure” myself (I realize that experts in linguistics aren’t keen on the idea that one form of a language is “better” or “purer” than another but I don’t claim expertise in linguistics). What I meant was that when Peruvians speak they enunciate all their words clearly (pronouncing the esses, as you say) and don’t speak with their mouths almost closed. If you’re used to Chilean speech those things are worth saying.

   As for Argentinian speech (stop me if I’ve said this before, as I may well have), in 1983 my wife and I were at one end of a carriage in a Chinese train. There were a group of people (obviously not Chinese) talking at the other end. My wife took one look and said “they’re Argentinian”. I asked her how she could possibly tell, as they were too far away to hear. She walked to the other end, and when she came back she reported that they were indeed Argentinian. I can’t always recognize an Argentinian accent (if they don’t say things like “Castillo”), but I can always tell when a Chilean is imitating an Argentinian.
10. Pancho says

    September 1, 2021 at 1:04 pm

    ” What I meant was that when Peruvians speak they enunciate all their words clearly (pronouncing the esses, as you say) and don’t speak with their mouths almost closed. If you’re used to Chilean speech those things are worth saying.

    I don’t know if you also had this in mind but when I’ve read or heard other people use a phrase like “speak a pure Spanish” it often means that its also free from unnecessary slang or regionalisms.
11. Lars Mathiesen says

    September 1, 2021 at 6:33 pm

    Sometimes you can just tell. One time on the commuter train I was talking to some friends in Swedish, and a young Swedish-looking lady on the other side of the aisle was talking to some exchange students she was guiding around (it turned out) in English. And almost at the same time we turned to each other and said, Du er da dansker, ikke? (‘Surely you’re Danish?).
12. David Eddyshaw says

    September 1, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    I am almost always taken for German by Germans (at least until I start speaking German.) In Berlin, I was asked for directions, in German, multiple times every day by Germans. The same thing once happened to me in Edinburgh.

    I think it is probably something to do with my natural charisma.
13. Lars Mathiesen says

    September 1, 2021 at 7:00 pm

    Your natural Celtic charisma, don’t forget. (Is it cultural appropriation if someone from A Centauri does it?)
14. rozele says

    September 2, 2021 at 3:33 am

    there’s a quadrant marked off by lines heading northeast and southeast from (roughly) rijeka, within which i get asked for directions in whatever the local language is. it does include the places my eastern european lineages are from (bucovina, volhynia, odessa, budapest…), but also quite a few other places. my sister only gets read as local in poland and ireland, though.
15. Xerîb says

    September 2, 2021 at 4:46 am

    Language in Peru in the news recently…

    Keiko Fujimori and her party lost the Peruvian general election in 2021. The new president, Pedro Castillo, named Guido Bellido to be prime minister. Bellido caused a furore recently when he addressed the Peruvian congress in Quechua and Aymara. Here is his address, with Spanish subtitles, beginning around the 1:00 mark. When asked to stop and use Spanish, he says that the Peruvian constitution permits him to use Quechua and Aymara, which are official languages of Peru.
16. Alon Lischinsky says

    September 2, 2021 at 5:37 am

    @Athel Cornish-Bowden:

    I realize that experts in linguistics aren’t keen on the idea that one form of a language is “better” or “purer” than another

    That’s quite the understatement. From a linguistic point of view, “better” or “pure” are entirely meaningless concepts.

    There is no linguistic criterion by which [s] is “better” or “purer” than [h], so these judgements are invariably social prejudices disguised as linguistic preference, viz.

    they spoke in ways that would put Chileans or Argentinians to shame

    I do not appreciate your implication that there is anything shameful about my native accent.
17. Lameen says

    September 2, 2021 at 7:08 am

    From a linguistic point of view, “better” or “pure” are entirely meaningless concepts.

    Equally true from the point of view of physics or chemistry, yet that doesn’t stop people from deciding that one food is better than another, or that the air in Yosemite is better than the air in Beijing. Most value judgements have little or nothing to do with science, and that’s as it should be.

    To my mind, convincing arguments against accent-shaming rely primarily on value ranking, not on linguistics; we can hopefully agree that treating people with respect is more valuable and more important than promoting language standardization. The linguistic facts strike me as almost entirely irrelevant to that debate. People do sometimes claim that non-standard varieties are illogical or whatever, but the rational argument for standardization rests primarily on economies of scale and ease of coordinated action; you don’t have to imagine that a specific standard language is intrinsically valuable to recognize the utility of having some kind of trans-regional standard.
18. languagehat says

    September 2, 2021 at 8:05 am

    I do not appreciate your implication that there is anything shameful about my native accent.

    You seem to be looking for offense. You must be aware that people say things like that all the time to express pride in their own way of speaking or attachment to one they have become fond of; to treat all such remarks as personal attacks is silly and pointless. It would be like a Yankees fan (or, mutatis mutandis, a Juventus or Man U fan) starting a fight every time they heard their team disparaged. And the comparison is not random, because Argentines are often seen in much the same way fans of winning teams are, as obnoxious and thinking themselves better than everyone else. I say this as someone who lived in Argentina and became rooted enough I was mistaken for a local; I even took Argentina’s side in the Falklands/Malvinas War, which was an unpopular thing to do in New York. I’ve heard speakers of other varieties of Spanish talk trash about Argentine Spanish, and it just gives me a chuckle. That seems to me a healthier way to respond.
19. languagehat says

    September 2, 2021 at 8:07 am

    (As a Mets fan, I’m also used to people talking trash about my team, and unless they’re clearly trying to be offensive I just laugh and join in. What can I say, my team is lousy as a matter of proven fact!)
20. Alon Lischinsky says

    September 2, 2021 at 9:14 am

    @LH:

    You must be aware that people say things like that all the time to express pride in their own way of speaking or attachment to one they have become fond of

    I think there are many ways of showing pride in one’s identity or background that do not involve disparaging others.

    And I’m not quite sure the comparison with sports fandoms is fair: accent discrimination, and linguistic discrimination more broadly, is a thing, and a harmful one. It’s a sociolinguistic fact that prestige hierarchies exist, but it’s also a sociolinguistic fact that they can be resisted. After all, it’s not as if you haven’t taken issue with the assumption that certain language varieties are better than others in the past.
21. languagehat says

    September 2, 2021 at 9:19 am

    After all, it’s not as if you haven’t taken issue with the assumption that certain language varieties are better than others in the past.

    Of course — it’s a silly and incorrect idea! But people are full of silly and incorrect ideas that they don’t realize are silly and incorrect; all I’m saying is that it’s exhausting and unhelpful to treat every such expression seriously. Just accept that people are often wrong with the best grace you can, is my philosophy.
22. Jen in Edinburgh says

    September 2, 2021 at 10:37 am

    I’ve been asked for directions in Aachen, Oslo, and I can’t think where else – but generally by English speakers who start off by apologetically asking if I speak English. I’m not sure what that says about me.
23. PlasticPaddy says

    September 2, 2021 at 11:07 am

    Romans in Rome do not know their own city. Lacking the patience to find a familiar landmark or make ever-increasing circles until they chance on their destination and usually late for an appointment (i.e., it is more than half an hour after the scheduled meeting time), they will ask anyone they think might know where the square or street they are looking for is, including tourists, Hare Krishnas, mime artists, statues, etc.
24. Y says

    September 2, 2021 at 12:44 pm

    I myself don’t read the expression “put to shame” as implying literal shame. I might say someone puts me to shame if I think they do something better than I do; say, an Israeli immigrant speaking English better than me, or alternatively, more comically foreign than me.
25. John Cowan says

    September 5, 2021 at 3:39 pm

    I myself don’t read the expression “put to shame” as implying literal shame.

    As a native speaker, I agree. The OED2 (1913) traces this figurative sense ‘surpass, outshine, eclipse’ to Thackeray’s novel Newcomes (1854): “No young woman of this year has come near her: those of past seasons she has distanced, and utterly put to shame.” This does not mean that this young woman actually makes her older peers feel (or ought to feel) ashamed of themselves. It’s simply that she exceeds them in (as it happens) beauty, according to the speaker, so that she gets all of the attention.

    ObHat: The Newcomes is apparently the first novel in English in which capitalism is used in its modern sense. (There is an obsolete sense ‘concentration of power in the capital city’, apparently from Argentinian Spanish.)