The impetus for this post comes from this short rant by Allen Murabayashi, in which he attacks Phil Schiller for his pronunciation of bokeh and asserts we should all be pronunciation it as in Japanese boh-keh.
With his last name, I assume Allen is either a decent of Japanese immigrants or maybe is a first generation immigrant who has adopted an English first name to make life easier (I know many Japanese who have done this). Whichever the case may be, that connection I think is making him a bit over-sensitive in this case.
I left a comment for him which hasn't been approved yet. I doubt it will be approved. I don't read his site often, but I do see posts from Allen on Petapixel often and he never responds to comments there. At any rate, I wrote:
I disagree with your premise, but then again I do kind of agree in this case. Let me explain.
I understand where you are coming from. I have lived in Japan for 15+ years, have Japanese kids, speak Japanese. So whenever people mispronounce Japanese words it grates on me a bit. (also when people pluralize Japanese words, it has the same effect... "samurais" just sounds so wrong as to make me irritated).[1] So I understand your feelings here.
But we have to recognize English is not Japanese. When a language takes a loanword, the pronunciation or spelling (or both) of that word should be changed to fit the rules of the new language. I may cringe when English folks say karaoke, but the English pronunciation is trying to use English pronunciation rules instead of Japanese, making it the correct way to say it.[2] People like me with some knowledge of Japanese may cringe, but we have to accept it. Expecting English speakers to instinctively know Japanese pronunciation rules and follow them is nuts. Are English speakers to learn the pronunciation rules for every language from which we take loanwords?
Now having said all that, Schiller's pronunciation was a little odd. Bokeh. Most Americans I've talked to either tend to over-emphases the vowels, making them diphthongs but otherwise say it correctly (Something like "bow-kay) or they ignore the "h" and pronounce it "boke". I understand Schiller has been a serious amateur photographer for years, so I am kind of surprised he hasn't heard the typical American pronunciation, but oh well.
What do you guys think? Should English speakers be expected to pronounce all loanwords as they are pronounced in their original language? Or should we adapt the pronunciation of loanwords to English rules (as we do with karaoke)? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Footnotes
The dictionaries I've checked claim both adding the -s for the plural form and not adding it are both ok for many Japanese loanwords. And I see Japanese loanwords both ways in print in English. Still, I cringe a little every time I read "haikus".
In Japanese it is kah-rah-oh-keh, which is quite different how we say the word in English.
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 | David LaSpina is an American photographer lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time. More? |