Jul 23,2008
It ought to be easy to establish anglicized versions of Spanish names - stress is as important in Spanish as in English, and there are far fewer phonemes in Spanish than in English, so we should be able to find equivalents without too much trouble.
A major difficulty is the assumption that many British people make that they already know how to pronounce Spanish, having spent the obligatory fortnight on one of the Costas. In deciding how to treat a particular name, this leads to preconceptions having to be overcome.
Dealing with stress first, the rules for placing the stress on Spanish words are simple:
1. Words that end in a vowel, or in <n> or <s> are stressed on the penultimate syllable. <i> and <u> next to another vowel do not count as a separate syllable, whereas any combination of <a>, <e> or <o> make two syllables.
2. Words that end in any other consonant are stressed on the final syllable.
3. There are exceptions, but these are all marked by an acute accent placed above the stressed vowel. So, if you know the correct Spanish spelling, then you know where the stress comes.
This is where the problems start: English-language printed material often ignores the accents. Consequently, such triples as cántara (water jug), cantara ((s)he would sing), and cantará ((s)he will sing) become confused. In the case of names, Mérida may be stressed wrongly on the second syllable, and Jaén and Cristóbal on the first.
There is one useful rule of thumb: family names that end in <ez> are stressed on the penultimate syllable, so González, Pérez, Martínez. Jerez, a place name not a family name, is stressed on the final syllable.
The name Esteban, which by all the rules is stressed on the second syllable, is mispronounced by many English speakers who stress the first syllable, even though a little thought would make them realise that it is equivalent to Stephen or Steven.
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4 Responses for "Anglicizing Spanish names"
The rules for stress in Portuguese are rather more complicated & slightly — but perhaps annoyingly — different from the Spanish rules. The treatment of & , for example is different in Pt: seria “it would be” in Pt, but sería in Es (conversely, séria “serious (f)” in Pt, but seria in Es).
But the admirable basic principle of writing accents only on words stressed “exceptionally” is common to both languages. In some ways it’s a pity that the Italians haven’t followed suit.
Sorry, part of my posting was wrongly interpreted as markup! Let’s try once more:
The rules for stress in Portuguese are rather more complicated & slightly — but perhaps annoyingly — different from the Spanish rules. The treatment of <i> & <u> , for example is different in Pt: seria “it would be” in Pt, but sería in Es (conversely, séria “serious (f)” in Pt, but seria in Es).
But the admirable basic principle of writing accents only on words stressed “exceptionally” is common to both languages. In some ways it’s a pity that the Italians haven’t followed suit.
At what point does an anglicized stress become acceptable? This question was prompted by this morning’s In Our Time on BBC R4, in which the subject was Simón Bolívar. In the face of 3 Hispanists who all stressed the surname correctly, Melvyn Bragg doggedly persisted in saying Bólivar throughout the programme. Is the analogy with Oliver simply too strong to overcome, I wonder?
I was surprised that Melvyn Bragg - who has presented programmes on language, and written books on English - should have gone on with Bólivar, against all the evidence of his ears (or are his ears not as good as they should be?) Either he or his producer should have checked with the Pronunciation Unit, which is not difficult as it is online on their desktop computers, and would have learned from that to say Bolívar. A few years ago, when a monument to S.B. was unveiled in London, Prince Michael of Kent (I think it was) clearly said the name with its Spanish stress, so there is an awareness in Britain of the original pronunciation.
Perhaps Melvyn Bragg’s producer, like Russell Brand’s and Jonathan Ross’s, is in too much awe of the Great Man to make any objections.
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