I have started the new decade by taking on the task of recording as an audiobook a new, and rather obscure and heavy academic volume about anthropology and climate change, and once again I have found myself fuming heatedly over the whole business of names (see my blog post on Romans further down). This time it is not only the challenge of finding the correct pronunciations of out-of-the-way villages in the Andes or Tanzania, but the simple realization that very few academics seem to have straightforward, ordinary names. I am sure each of them individually has no problem whatsoever with her or his name, but my renderings of them have often meant resorting to great creativity and even close editing individual syllables to get the name...correct?
Well, who knows? So apologies in advance to messrs. Rwamugira, Majugu, Ouattara and Xurong to mention but a few –I am sure your academic work is sterling, no matter how garbled I may have pronounced your names.
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