Race report: 'UK not deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities'

[Angilion]

Wish I could find that video from Big Brother of Jade Goody's mum acting completely incapable of pronouncing 'Shilpa'. Thats the level of 'name discrimination' I am talking about here.

So you're talking about people incorrectly pronouncing names from a different language to their own, but for some reason you're only considering it wrong when the person doing it is English. Why?

I think you're unfairly discriminating against people who have less ability to learn other languages by calling their lack of ability discrimination.

In some cases, it's pretty much impossible due to differences in languages. There are sounds in some languages that simply don't exist in others. In most cases, it's a matter of spelling or pronunciation of combinations of words, but that's still a major change. It's not even necessarily a matter of language or even dialect. Simply a change in accent is enough. I moved from southeast England to Stoke-on-Trent, in the midlands. Quite a few words are pronounced differently. Should I demand that everyone changes their pronunciation to suit me despite the fact that I'm the one pronouncing words differently to the area I'm now living in? Some people have taken the **** to varying extents. Some of them were genuinely hostile. Are they racist against people from a different area of England?

I've had people from other countries pronounce my real name incorrectly. They were pronouncing a vowel long instead of short or vice versa. Why should I care? They had no hostile intent. They were just applying pronunciation rules from their own native language. That's not racism. Declaring that it's racism only when the person doing it is of a particular "race" is racism.

I can't imagine anyone with an "English accent" going abroad and being offended because someone mispronounced their name, or being confused and finding them racist because they didn't make the effort to learn how to correctly pronounce a name that is outside of their cultural norm. Maybe just stop being so soft. If you're in the UK and have a name that isn't common here because it has roots within a different culture then people will pronounce it wrong sometimes. I have a friend from Norway I speak to a lot, do you imagine I pronounce her name 100% correctly when I speak it despite my best efforts? It has symbols in it such as Ø that we don't even use here.

Yes, that.

It doesn't even need different symbols. By chance, one of the youtubers I watch put up a Q&A video a couple of days ago and I watched it yesterday. They're English, but they're currently living in France. They speak French very fluently and have years of experience with it. Someone asked how they became so fluent and what words are most likely to give them away as a non-native speaker. The word they chose was 'grenouille'. No symbols that don't appear in English. To an English speaker, it doesn't look too difficult to pronounce. But it is because the correct pronunciation contains two sounds that don't exist in English. I've heard it pronounced correctly. I can't pronounce it correctly. Because English doesn't contain those sounds. Maybe the most extreme example of that for a quite commonly spoken language is Xhosa.

 

[Reality|Bites]

I get his point though, I think we all do don't we? If he's not that outgoing and can't banter back to the other guy then yeah it can be quite upsetting if you haven't learned how to deal with other people properly and unsure of the situation.

Here in Glasgow we seem to have trouble pronouncing the T at the end of names or words
I used to work with a woman called Pat but I became too aware that all that came out of my mouth was Pa...oddsound, So I just started calling her Patricia in the end. It never bothered her as everyone else just said Pa..oddsound, but I just felt it was wrong as I had too much respect for her I think.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

So you're talking about people incorrectly pronouncing names from a different language to their own, but for some reason you're only considering it wrong when the person doing it is English. Why?

I think you're unfairly discriminating against people who have less ability to learn other languages by calling their lack of ability discrimination.

I'm not. I'm considering when its obviously being done 100% fake and purely to cause offense, and this mostly happens when the person doing it is 'English', to quote you.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Is this serious or parody? I can't tell any more.

Getting a white person's name wrong, silly billy. Getting a black person's name wrong, racism.

This is why people are just rolling their eyes these days when people start talking about systemic racism. It's way overused for ridiculous things that in other contexts would just be daft.

No. If you called a black girl Laura instead of Jennifer no one would care.

If you assumed that she must have whatever you consider to be a 'black' name when she doesn't, that would be racism, because the only reason you thought as such was her race.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Not ever seeing any names before, how to determine one is fake and one is not?

Regardless, if you think that is racism then aside from your manager being an idiot, the problem is almost entirely with you.

The thing I linked? That was just something I randomly found linked to names and racism while I was trying to find stuff to read on the topic, and didn't say that I find it racist. I thought it was fun actually.

 

[Angilion]

I'm not. I'm considering when its obviously being done 100% fake and purely to cause offense, and this mostly happens when the person doing it is 'English', to quote you.

Does it? Or does it only get any attention then? Or do you live in England? If you do, how can you have equal knowledge of how often it happens in France? Or Nigeria? Or Japan? Or anywhere else?

How do you know with your 100% certainty when a person is pretending to not be able to speak another language rather than actually not able to speak another language? How do you determine their intent? Do you assume their intent is malicious because they're English? What do you mean by "English"? Do you mean "white"?

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Does it? Or does it only get any attention then? Or do you live in England? If you do, how can you have equal knowledge of how often it happens in France? Or Nigeria? Or Japan? Or anywhere else?

How do you know with your 100% certainty when a person is pretending to not be able to speak another language rather than actually not able to speak another language? How do you determine their intent? Do you assume their intent is malicious because they're English? What do you mean by "English"? Do you mean "white"?

1) UK laws don't apply to other countries.

2) A name is not a language. As per my example, not being able to pronounce 'Shilpa' on Big Brother was clearly fake and done to cause offense. Also sarcastic tones are easy to identify.

 

[Angilion]

1) UK laws don't apply to other countries.

True, but completely irrelevant. Nobody said they did and what was being talked about has nothing to do with any laws anywhere.

2) A name is not a language. As per my example, not being able to pronounce 'Shilpa' on Big Brother was clearly fake and done to cause offense.

A name is part of a language. It can't be pronounced correctly without knowing enough of that language. Try, for example, the name 'Eithne'. If you don't know enough about the Irish language, you'll get the pronunciation wrong. In some cases, a name can't be pronounced correctly without speaking at least part of that language because different languages can contain different sounds.

Giving one example (without any evidence of it - I've never watched Big Brother, so I've not seen what you're refering to) doesn't answer any of my questions.

 

[Reality|Bites]

Irish is the worst to read out loud when you don't know how to pronounce it...My grandparents from both side came over from Donegal.
Started life here in Glasgow as potato pickers and sleeping in actual garden sheds till they got enough money for a single end.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

True, but completely irrelevant. Nobody said they did and what was being talked about has nothing to do with any laws anywhere.



A name is part of a language. It can't be pronounced correctly without knowing enough of that language. Try, for example, the name 'Eithne'. If you don't know enough about the Irish language, you'll get the pronunciation wrong. In some cases, a name can't be pronounced correctly without speaking at least part of that language because different languages can contain different sounds.

Easy. You ask 'Eithne' how to pronounce her name then say it as she did.

Also out of interest I tried looking up how to pronounce it on youtube, and every such video pronounces it differently such as:

En-ya
Eye-theen
Eth-na

All three are ways are easy to pronounce, the name is simply not easy to read which is absolutely not what I am discussing here. If someone still can't pronounce someone's name after they have clearly explained to them how to, then that person is simply an idiot.

Giving one example (without any evidence of it - I've never watched Big Brother, so I've not seen what you're refering to) doesn't answer any of my questions.

The clip of the name mispronunciation no longer exists unfortunately, which is a shame because it was the perfect example of this.

I'll try to explain it:

'I call you princess because I'm afraid if I say your name I'll get it wrong'
'Its SHIL-PA'
'SHI - POO - LEE???'

Etc. I've literally only ever seen such behaviour from white people towards non white people, and it is clearly obvious how fake it is in every such situation.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Found it, at 1:18

Only other context I could find:

'The issue is Jackeiys refusal to even try to say her name. She started off by calling her Princess and when Shilpa said that it was okay to call her that, she changed it to Indian. When Jackie does try to say Shilpa she always draws attention to her mispronunciation by repeating herself, or saying something like "whatever your name is".'

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/511498/an-apology-about-jackieys-mispronounciation/p4

The clip doesnt actually have the full scope of the name mispronunciations, just a small amount of what had actually happened.

If anyone here genuinely believes the name 'Shilpa' is too hard to pronounce due to being from another part of the world, both the words 'shill' and 'pa' are in the English dictionary. All you have to do is put the two together.

 

[Reality|Bites]

That just comes across as what I've said before about being from Glasgow and unable to say the T at the end of Pat really, but she's getting pulled up for not being able to say it.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

That just comes across as what I've said before about being from Glasgow and unable to say the T at the end of Pat really, but she's getting pulled up for not being able to say it.

Except she says every other name and word without issue.

 

[Reality|Bites]

How many hours have you been at this now? lol It's Saturday night..well 5mins till Sunday
Every other word as in? which words are similar that she says no bother?

 

[Angilion]

Now you've found the clip of 1 example that doesn't answer my questions, I'll ask the questions again:

Does it? Or does it only get any attention then? Or do you live in England? If you do, how can you have equal knowledge of how often it happens in France? Or Nigeria? Or Japan? Or anywhere else?

How do you know with your 100% certainty when a person is pretending to not be able to speak another language rather than actually not able to speak another language? How do you determine their intent? Do you assume their intent is malicious because they're English? What do you mean by "English"? Do you mean "white"?

Although you have clarified that you are talking about "white" people. Although you're actually talking about "white" people who speak English.

EDIT: The "who speak English" bit is probably relevant. Being extremely monolingual is relatively common in people who speak English as their native language.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Now you've found the clip of 1 example that doesn't answer my questions, I'll ask the questions again:



Although you have clarified that you are talking about "white" people. Although you're actually talking about "white" people who speak English.

EDIT: The "who speak English" bit is probably relevant. Being extremely monolingual is relatively common in people who speak English as their native language.

Names aren't a language and can both be written clearly using the English language, and explained how to pronounce.

I speak English as my native language. I can clearly and correctly repeat all names I have come across in my life after both seeing them written and hearing them spoken. Why is it that other people in England struggle so much with even the simplest non - anglo centric names?

 

[Reality|Bites]

his boss did say it properly at first he said, maybe he was just saying it wrong after that as a friendly sort of jokey nick name and then he saw it annoyed you so he kept pushing that button as he thought it was funny as he meant no real offence and just bringing you into the team?
I bet he winds everyone else up too, You've just been scarred with bad experiences in you life?

 

[Angilion]

Names aren't a language and can both be written clearly using the English language, and explained how to pronounce.

I speak English as my native language. I can clearly and correctly repeat all names I have come across in my life after both seeing them written and hearing them spoken. Why is it that other people in England struggle so much with even the simplest non - anglo centric names?

Because they do. Not everyone has your level of ability.

EDIT: Also, it's not limited to "white" native English speakers. People often struggle with unfamiliar words in languages they don't understand that use rules of pronunciation they aren't familiar with, let alone languages that use sounds that don't even exist in their language.

 

[Reality|Bites]

Names aren't language? Most names mean something else in another language don't they?

Shaun as a boy's name is of Irish and Hebrew origin, and the meaning of Shaun is "God is gracious".

now I know lol

 

[Angilion]

Names aren't language? Most names mean something else in another language don't they?

Names are still part of a language anyway, whether they mean anything or not and whether or not the meaning is commonly associated with the name. For example, the name 'Fred' means 'red elf' or 'counselled by elves', but few people know that and it doesn't matter. The meaning of the name isn't associated with the name. Nor is the meaning clear anyway, regardless of which meaning is correct. But whatever the literal meaning of the name, it's still part of a language.