And now for what some might consider a vaguely frivolous post. I’d like to correct a few pronunciation issues: one prevalent amongst too many people that I meet, and the other, connected, and prevalent in the astronomy world. This is partly because I’d rather not have the lovely readers of this blog walking around pronouncing my name wrong and also because I’ve had a bone to pick with astronomers who should know better for a while.
First of all, pronounce my name like it is spelled. My name is not Shanda! That would be awful, since “shanda” means shame in my grandfather’s first language, Yiddish. My grandfather insisted that my parents be careful about that.
Second of all, it is not Chandra. Where the hell does the extra r come from?
Third of all, in Hindi, there is no such thing as that horrid “a” that we hear in “at.” (If you can follow pronunciation guides this sounds like ‘at.) So, I am not Ch’anda, and the great Nobel Laureate astrophysicist Chandrasekar is not Shandra or Ch’andra! The “a” is pronounced more like “uh” — Chunda, Chund-ra — if you are trying to get close to the Hindi pronunciation. Otherwise, Chonda works.
By the way, can anyone tell me of a language that does have that “at” sound in it, besides English? I can’t think of one.
Oh well, it’s such a shanda that so many people mispronounce Chanda.
What a horrible post, and you obviously have no class to make a blog like this. My daughter Shanda (pronounced like it is spelled) came across this entry while searching her name. She finds someone saying her name is horrid. She gets just as many people saying her name wrong, move on and get over it.
Well Tracee, I’m glad that Shanda doesn’t mean a bad word in your home language, but in my family it does, so it is an insult. I’m sorry to inform you that some words have different meanings in different languages, and so I hope you will respect the fact that calling me Shanda would be insulting.
Anyway, I hope you’ve moved on and gotten over it.
Title…
Very interesting post. I would like to link back to it….
Actually, even though the Chanda is not pronounced with an æ (the a sound in at) it is not true that this sound does not exist in Hindi ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi#Phonology ) as ऐ is rendered as æ for some words, in fact it exists in most languages: Tomales (spanish), Dar (=door in Persian), flacon (french), vam(a) (most slavic languages = you) , ak (bengali =one), etc.
But probably what you meant is that the sound doesn’t exist in Sanskrit (which is where your name comes from), which is true.
YiShaBao, I would probably disagree with you about the technicalities of the sound because I think the American “at” is a very distinctive (and terrible) sound, and that’s what I was referring to. When I took Hindi, I didn’t hear anything like it. Maybe this is just my ear being picky …
Also, let me correct you — that is NOT how tamales is pronounced, and I say that as someone who grew up with Spanish. Wrong “a” sound.