BAME Name pronunciation

[ComeOnLet]

We are Indian. DS has a name that often suffers from an anglicised pronunciation. It doesn't upset him at all. One day in school he decides to tell some friends how his name is actually pronounced.

DS tells me that one girl he's friend with makes an honest attempt at calling DS by his actual name pronunciation (she gets about 80% of the way there) but that she seems to smile and laugh when trying to say his name.

Would you consider this a bit rude? As she she'll call DS by his actual name and have a smile on her face about how she's pronounced it.

Maybe I'm over thinking.

I don't think this means anything sinister. My Greek friend and I laugh when I try to pronounce his name in the Greek way. I can't do it. It's hilarious. My English accent won't let me.

She is just laughing at her terrible pronunciation, not your sons name.

when I was learning a second language I felt really self conscious and embarrassed trying to pronounce things correctly. And would get very worried that I had mis pronounced it and might upset somebody. I am not English but grew up here and was never taught my dad first language or my grandads first language (which also wasn’t English).

I can imagine laughing out of nervousness or sheer embarrassment that I had tried and failed. I think it’s more likely to be laughing at herself for nervousness or embarrassment than trying to pronounce his name, while taking the piss.

I could see myself doing this and beating myself up afterwards about it and feeling really bad that Iaughed. Sometimes I laugh or smile when I'm embarrassed by myself or uncomfortable, If hate if I'd ever hurt anyone this way.

She might be laughing at him or it could be a completely innocent giggling attempt at his name. It is usually pretty obvious if it is malicious.

Because we (and op) are never going to know what this girl's intentions were and because he will live a long life of people mispronouncing his name and not being able to control it, the focus should be in how he handles it, both in the moment and afterwards. The healthiest way is probably to view it within the context of the relationship. Is the girl kind to him in other ways, is she someone he respects and cares about? If so then he might be able to ignore it for now and focus on these things until it stops being an issue. If she is silly and unkind in other ways, then he can ignore it and understand that this is not something to be hurt by, it's a her problem not a him problem. If you, @ComeOnLet can support him in this it will be better than trying to understand someone's inner self.

Also, if your south Asian and don't know BAME is an outdated term then I we can't help you.

YABVU, lots of people don’t keep up with stuff like that.

It's just that I'm wondering about the fact she seems to laugh and smile when saying DS's name almost as if it's "funny".
lots of people laugh through nerves and embarrassment.

I think there's a difference between getting a foreign language name as right as you can in an English accent, and actually putting on the foreign language accent to sound like a native saying the name. The second can feel a bit silly to do and so might make a child giggle. Unless she's nasty or seems racist in other ways or it's upsetting your son I wouldn't overthink it.

It could be like me when I try to speak French - I am laughing and wincing at my own efforts. I definitely need to grow up, in fairness, but I am not mocking the French at all.

6th form, she probably fancies him 😝

I’m guessing she might be laughing at herself because she is trying but probably knows she’s getting it a bit weaned is trying to play it off because she might be a bit embarrassed.

That said, have him keep correcting people and telling them his name. I have a friend with a very common name from India. She’s always pronounced her name wrong for non-Indian friends because it seemed easier to her. It wasn’t until we were in India together and everyone called her something different that I realised she’d always just gave me the ‘white people pronunciation’ of her name. I was perfectly able to pronounce her name the correct way. I wish she’d given me that name to begin with. I felt awful I’d been calling her the wrong name for 10 years!

If actually she is the one out of all his friends who is trying to say ot properly doesn't this indicate that it is herself she is laughing at and not him. I would be more bothered that his other friends can't be arsed to try to pronounce his name properly.

Why do you feel awful for following her instructions?
Monolingual people often don't get it. But there's a difference between malicious mispronunciation and 'fitting in with the language'.

I'm Indian, even my parents don't pronounce my name the same way as they speak different Indian languages and have different accents, my name is from one of them. In any case, they're both mixed race but predominantly Indian. I speak 5 languages (2 of them 'white people' ones lol) and I pronounce it differently depending on which I'm speaking. I find it quite jarring using the 'Indian' pronunciation when I speak other languages, it throws the rest of the sentence off for me.
@Unexpectedlysinglemum exactly what you said!

I get annoyed when people just CBA, saying it's difficult to spell (it isn't!) or calling me something else altogether. My name is similar to Shivani. Shi - va- ni. Yes some people might think it's 'Shy' instead of 'She' for the first one. That's still OK.
But people have baulked at the spelling, called me Shirley, Shivvy, Shavani, Shivini, Sabini (????)

But I have no issue with different pronunciations based natural accent/language. Some people emphasize the 'Shi', others run the syllables together, I don't really mind.

Of course other people mind (and some languages are very exacting), I pronounce names the way they want. But this girl doesn't, you don't need to feel anything on her behalf.

*OK as in it's a legitimate error and I correct them saying it's 'She' not 'shy'.
Instead of 'shy'-'van'-'nai' it should be 'she' -' vahn' - 'knee'. The latter with whatever emphasis.

As an aside BAME hasn't been an acceptable acronym for quite some time.

I wouldn't have thought she was doing it deliberately, although maybe a bit of laziness perhaps. You say she's his friend so presumably they like each other and get on in all other respects. Why would she be malicious about his name? She's just smiling at a combination of his rather difficult to pronounce name and her ineptitude to do so. There's lots of names and places I can't pronounce but it's not because I'm nasty or racist. As I said, I suspect there's a bit of laziness involved. It happens all over the world when people are faced with foreign or unusual names.

I think you're massively reading into this.

Also if people can pronounce Tchaikovsky and Schwarzenegger they can pronounce other names.

@ThisisNotMySalad I have a very short, English name. I lived in Southern Europe for a few years and almost no one could pronounce my actual name. I ended up Romanticising it and putting up with a two syllable name because one didn't fly. I make a huge effort to pronounce names even when they include phonemes I don't experience in everyday life. But I am very good at accents and languages. I don't expect everyone to be able to do that, because they can't.

Also, people can't pronounce Schwarzenegger at all. Sh-warts- isn't how it starts.

It's probably just an awkward laugh at herself?

It’s only rude when you tell someone how to say it and they continue to get it wrong. I work with a lot of Eastern Europeans and always google how to pronounce their names before they start, it is hard for a native English speaker to get to grips with all the Vs,Js etc that are not followed by vowels.

On the flip side I know an Indian who always says my name wrong, even though I’ve corrected him. I don’t think he is doing it on purpose but he seems incapable, my name has a W which he can’t get.

She’s probably embarrassed. I’ve def had times when I’ve been saying a students name, they’ve corrected me and I cannot tell what I’m saying differently to what they want

I have a colleague called Rebekka who works with a lot of Japanese clients and she uses a Japanese name that's close for those who struggle with it. Much like people take western names but reversed.

It is potentially a bit rude but there are phonemes and combinations of phonemes in many languages that simply don't exist in English (and vice versa). That can make it impossible (or almost impossible) to hear and replicate the exact sounds from another language.

When a person tries to say a phoneme that doesn't exist in their language, or say a combination of phonemes that aren't found in their language, it can be a bit of a tongue twister for them - or they simply cannot understand where they're going wrong. And tongue twisters make people laugh.

Also, a lot of people laugh at themselves when they get things wrong. It doesn't seem like the friend was laughing AT your child's name, more laughing at herself for not being able to get it right.

Yes, we should all try hard to pronounce people's names how they prefer but sometimes it's impossible for us to hear the sounds and replicate them.

I've lived in non-English-speaking countries and have had my surname and first name butchered in all of them. So long as people do the best approximation of my name that they can then that's fine. I've had friends and colleagues giggle and even roar with laughter when they've tried to copy the "correct" pronunciation. Others have just called me the closest approximation in their language And honestly it never bothered me because their intent was clear. No one was being a dick - they just found my name rather tricky.

So yes, it can come across as rude. I can understand you/your child being put out. But if your child's friend was trying her best and was laughing at her own attempt then there's zero malice there.