Children exposed to bilingual input typically learn 2 languages without obvious difficulties. However, it is unclear how preverbal infants cope with the inconsistent input and how bilingualism affects early development. In 3 eye-tracking studies we show that 7-month-old infants, raised with 2 languages from birth, display improved cognitive control abilities compared with matched monolinguals. Whereas both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to respond to a speech or visual cue to anticipate a reward on one side of a screen, only bilinguals succeeded in redirecting their anticipatory looks when the cue began signaling the reward on the opposite side. Bilingual infants rapidly suppressed their looks to the first location and learned the new response. These findings show that processing representations from 2 languages leads to a domain-general enhancement of the cognitive control system well before the onset of speech.

Do American ex-pats and tourists have a magical aura that imbue Asians with ability and desire to pronounce American phonemes in perfect pitch?

Of course not. I was speaking of here in the US, where the language is (American) English. If Americans decide to live (or work) in another country, they should expect their names to be pronounced using the phonemes of the language of the land. This is certainly true of those living in Mexico, where the short “i” in American names is usually pronounced “ee”. It would be up to the ex-pat to learn to recognize their name pronounced in the local language.

This may be, but whatever the spelling, AFAIK most such names are pronounced (by strangers, etc.) using the phonemes of modern American English.

Why would a Asian administrator suddenly switch to modern American English phonemes just because they are dealing with a Westerner.

Do American ex-pats and tourists have a magical aura that imbue Asians with ability and desire to pronounce American phonemes in perfect pitch?

In order to register with the Japanese administration (for merchant licences, marriages, births etc.) indigenous populations would be forced to Japanes-ify their name.

This is still, to some level in place, for people wishing to naturalise as Japanese. But I think they are (at least outwardly) more accomodating to non-standard alphabet usage with katakana.
(That said I think I had at least three different spellings of my surname while I was over there – one at work, one at the Alien registration, and one for my bank account and bills)

A person’s name is their identity, their self, and probably the most important thing about who they are. Forcing people to change it against their will is a very serious breach of basic human rights.

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In consideration of Ms Brown’s objection to Chinese names – which Chinese would she be refering to. Not only are there the major languages of cantonese and Mandarin – but China encompases at least 150 ethnicities with more than likely more dialects amongst them.

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Names are special words, and even in English need not be pronounced the way they are spelt (Mrs Buckett, anyone?).

For people in governmental administration who will often be encountering name pronouncfiationa nd meeting – training in handling these circumstances and acting sensitively to ethnic concerns is just a simple must.

Advice is to give it your best shot (or failing that ask), and always take heed that the other person probably knows how to correctly pronounce their own name.

Another friend of mine, Xiu, uses the name Gavin when he is speaking english and has since he was in High School (referring to my earlier post, when people learn of his Chinese name they almost invariably pronounce it “shoe” or even “Zee-ew”, but it is more like “Sooh”, but depending on which transliteration it can be spelled Xiu or Hsu).

You appear to have confused Xiu and Xu in Pinyin. “Xu” = Wade-Giles “Hsu”. Sh + Ã? is the pronunciation, roughly. It’s firmly a front vowel. “Xiu”, on the other hand, is like “She” + the “oe” in “toe”. I think Xu is a more common surname, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, when I lived in Taiwan I saw some pretty wacky Anglicised names. One guy who worked in a 7/11 was named “Suffocates”. Bubble and Nemo worked in Starbucks. Why not go with that? Choose the most rapperesque name possible, the most ghetto name in the history of English, or go with something offensive. Hitler Kong?

I give up. I fail at quotes. everything until “And whether “Koh” is supposed to be the same as “Ko” is likewise everyone’s guess.” is quoted, the rest is mine

Most of that problem lies with the zany English orthography. I mean, I’m not even talking about Featherstonehaugh. Look at the words though and through, and then listen to them.

Another is that several different transcriptions exist for Mandarin alone (let alone Cantonese). Pinyin was only invented in the late 1950s and only became official in the 1970s, and then only in the PRC… if someone spells their surname, say, Koh, all you can do is guess. It might be Guó for instance. And whether “Koh” is supposed to be the same as “Ko” is likewise everyone’s guess.

yes, but how does this affect the spelling of an individual person’s name? are you saying that sometime in the 50’s – 70’s, all already existing names had to go through a “Rechtschreibreform” (a mandatory change in spelling), and this somehow only had effect on some documents, but not others?
WHY would an already established transcription of a person’s name change just because a new transcription system came along? Once a spelling has been established once, on whatever legal document the person gets first, shouldn’t that then become the “official” name, and if you wanted a different spelling sometime down the line, you’d have to change your name just like everybody else.

This still makes no sense to me at all.

also, the problem of inconsistent documents is completely separate from the problem of how to pronounce names, especially since the pronunciation-game in the U.S. is all sorts of interesting. for example, there’s two groups of people in this area with the last name Gagnon. The Detroit-Gagnons pronounce it “gag-nin”, the ND-Gagnons pronounce it “gan-ja”. Both of course are attempts at rendering a French name, which have become established at some point as the “right” pronunciation of that name. However, when they go vote, the relation of spelling to pronunciation is irrelevant, whereas consistency in papers is.

lastly, this has nothing to do with the idiocy of Ms. Brown, who claims that somehow Asian names are much more problematic that the plethora of weird European names. though I’d be greatly interested how the American bureaucracy deals with the names of recent immigrants from Iceland, for example…

Most of that problem lies with the zany English orthography. I mean, I’m not even talking about Featherstonehaugh. Look at the words though and through, and then listen to them.

Another is that several different transcriptions exist for Mandarin alone (let alone Cantonese). Pinyin was only invented in the late 1950s and only became official in the 1970s, and then only in the PRC… if someone spells their surname, say, Koh, all you can do is guess. It might be Guó for instance. And whether “Koh” is supposed to be the same as “Ko” is likewise everyone’s guess.

yes, but how does this affect the spelling of an individual person’s name? are you saying that sometime in the 50’s – 70’s, all already existing names had to go through a “Rechtschreibreform” (a mandatory change in spelling), and this somehow only had effect on some documents, but not others?
WHY would an already established transcription of a person’s name change just because a new transcription system came along? Once a spelling has been established once, on whatever legal document the person gets first, shouldn’t that then become the “official” name, and if you wanted a different spelling sometime down the line, you’d have to change your name just like everybody else.

This still makes no sense to me at all

But that is not what is at issue here.

What is absurd here, as has been pointed out already, is that a name like “Wu” or “Vang” is not any where near as problematic in translation or pronunciation as a name like Schnerrenbergerdorph. Or a name like Sean. Mrs. Brown is down on the East Asians for her own reason, and the rest of this stuff is merely crap flying out of one orifice or another.

AK: The vast majority of what you might call “English” names used in the US are not originally from English, and they are not modified to the degree you demand for the Chinese or other East Asians.

This may be, but whatever the spelling, AFAIK most such names are pronounced (by strangers, etc.) using the phonemes of modern American English. And, AFAIK, many, many immigrants rationalized the spelling of their names when they arrived. As for those who didn’t (and keep non-English letters, accent marks, or whatever in the spelling of their names), AFAIK they often have trouble with documents and databases which don’t support foreign lettering.

If people want to keep the spelling of their names non-phonetic, that’s their prerogative, but they (and their descendants) will have to suffer from mispronunciations. In the case of east Asians, since their names are generally written in a non-English script in their own language, I don’t see what the problem is with picking a phonetic English spelling. Still, if they see a problem, they can spell their name(s) any way they want. They’ll just have to live with the consequences.