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September 21, 2004 Pronounciation LanguageLog has apost about how the World Tennis Association's (WTA) official pronunciation guide for Russian women tennis players ismostly incorrect. menting onthe post ments : The kicker isthat "the WTA stands byits pronunciation guide" and suggests that "many players might adopt Americanized pronunciations when they speak with foreign reporters." A shame iftrue; it's not really any harder tosay sha-RAH-pava than "Sha-ra-POH-vuh," and why wouldn't you want your name said correctly? Itis, ofcourse, silly ofthe WTA tocontinue tostick byanincorrect guide, but Ithink the issue here isnot really about pronunciation as itistranscription. Linguists know how toproduce urate transcription (whether using the IPA orotherwise), most non-linguists donot. The WTA allowed the tennis players themselves tosubmit the pronunciations. Myguess isthat the errors are less from their desire toAmericanize the pronunciation than itissimply ignorance ofthe best way totranscribe the pronunciation oftheir own name. InTaiwan Iwas surprised how many people misspelled the ics oftheir own names, even onofficial documents. These were not necessarily issues relating tovarious pronunciations ofthe same character, but simply insensitivity tothe existence ofafinal nasal velar. So"lin" 林[lin] and "ling" 凌[li ??]would both bewritten bymany people as"lin," even ifthey themselves pro