Mom: Do you have any Japanese kids in your class?

Girl: Yeah, There’s Yuko.

Mom: What’s Yuko’s English name?

Girl: What do you mean?

Mom: You know how Judy is Chinese and Judy is her English name? If Yuko is her Chinese name, what’s her English name?

Girl: *Stares at her mom like she’s from another planet.* Uh. We all just call her “Yuko”.

How delightfully ignorant.

So yes the Idiots need a mite more training to prevent such occurrences like maybe a basic understanding that other people have names that aren’t just English.

I remain an extremely stalwart liberal, but it’s not fair to take literally half of this woman’s statement and write up a biased headline and story based on the first part while virtually ignoring the second part of what she said, which very significantly affects the meaning.

Outrage is lusty stuff. Outrage predicated on half-truths is lusty stuff that’s bad for the world as a whole, and such seems to flow in copious amounts through the bloodstream of Boing Boing these days. It’s a sad development.

I mean, I’m ready to jump on my Texan reps whenever I can, but this is just a misunderstanding.

Picking up a bit of Mandarin Chinese doesn’t seem so hard? Simpler than Icelandic or Finnish. There’s course that looks quite good at wikibooks.

All native English speakers think that English is a very simple language.

Which means that everyone not perfectly fluent in English must be an idiot, and deserves to be treated as such.

Funny how that works.

I’m merely saying that it would have behooved Cory to accurately summarize the woman’s entire argument, instead of simply taking half of what she says. When someone appends a caveat to something they’ve said, to write something up as if the caveat doesn’t exist and never was uttered is very much not a menschy thing to do.

It’s a bit ironic, because a brief perusal of Boing Boing’s headlines will indicate it doesn’t hesitate to call out FOX News when they’ve done something journalistically underhanded — and this precise tactic (extract part of what someone said and react with outrage to it while not reproducing the entirety of the remark, that entirety being something that places the extracted phrase into a more understandable context) is something that is one of their mainstays.

He’s saying that the transliterations are inconsistent because some letters might be mangled when government workers are dealing with the names and (more importantly) some people have decided to change them without notifying the government. Based on the fact that our country is full of immigrants who spell their names in all sorts of varied ways (talk to a Scandinavian or a Polish person!) I would say that transcription problems aren’t the real issue, it’s the fact that people are changing their names without telling the government.

So, why not stick with a single official name when dealing with the government to make things easier? And no that doesn’t mean you have to change “Jaebo Xi” to “Bob Smith”. It could simply mean don’t change “Jaebo Xi” to “Jaybeau Zee” without telling anyone!

As for the suggestion about people in his community coming up with a solution goes, my question would be what’s a better alternative? Would you prefer that the government mandate the transliterations that are used? And, if there isn’t any effective organization in the community then why is he there representing them?

I think he had it right when he asked them to come up with some “give and take”. Obvious flaws should be ignored (like lack of hyphen) and the community should spread the word that it’s best to stick with a single spelling when dealing with the government. They could also educate them on how to officially change the spelling whenever they desire.

Being able to change the spelling of your name whenever you feel like it is a kind of freedom, but I’m guessing it’s not the one most immigrants come here for :)

I like to stick it to the man just as much as the next guy, but doing it when it’s not absolutely deserved just serves to diminish the impact of legitimate outrage.

Apparently they choose a name so that foreigners can more easily remember how to address them.

No my name is KUNTA KINTE.

No your name is Toby.

This Betty Brown character is insane.

Further, her suggestion that they wouldn’t have to change their names, but just come up with something easier for poll-workers to deal with is nonsensical because you’re only allowed to register to vote with your official name.

What he points out to her, very politely, I might add, is that it’s precisely their attempts to make their names more suitable for native English speakers which have caused the problems. After he finishes saying this, she again tries to say something along the lines of “well, maybe you people can sort it out”. She’s clearly not interested in making any changes to the law to accommodate the very real problems that real citizens are having exercising their constitutional rights. That’s why she’s an idiot, and that’s why this is outrageous.

Despite what the commenters are saying, the problem isn’t as simple as have tried to vote under an “unofficial” name: it is that there is no clear process by which an official english-language name is established for people named in foreign languages.

Let’s consider a made-up person named Xi-Dong Qang. She comes to the United States first on a student visa as a high-school exchange student with name “Xi-Dong Qang”. The person doing data entry at the high school accidentally enters “Xi-Dong Quang” because they’re an American who is used to Q’s always being followed by U’s. She goes to college, and uses the name “Xi-Dong Quang” on her paperwork because that’s what matches her high school transcript. While in college, she realize that Americans don’t know that the X is supposed to be the sh sound, so her first name is often pronounced “zidong”. So she starts spelling it “Shi-Dong Qang” now. Once she graduates, she gets a job and applies for a work visa, which they receive. On the paperwork prepared by the lawyers of the company they’re working for, their name is spelled “Shidong Qang”. Next she gets a green card under the name “Shi-Dong Qang” and also obtains citizenship. When she signs up for her utilities, the person on the other end of the phone spells the name as it sounds to her: “Shidong Chang”.

So which of these names is her “official name”? When she goes to register to vote, which of these can she register with? Which of them can she get ID with? Is this the same set? If she happens to register to vote with a name which she can’t get ID for, what is she supposed to do now that the law requires ID to vote in Texas?

Most of the laws are written with the assumption that you have one english language name on your birth-certificate and that there is no variation unless you get married or change it. For people with no english-language names on their birth-certificate, problems are going to arise unless the laws are changed in some way.

When I visited mainland China recently, a lot of English speaking Chinese people introduced themselves to me with an English first name.

And often they choose names like Alfie, Alvin, Angus etc.

And yeah – watch the video. This woman isn’t that ignorant or awful, just poorly expressing herself. And having that isolated and propgated by Mr Doctorow.

That never happens, normally, for page views or the likes. Never.

I grew up in Texas, and I still live here. I have a hunch that the vast majority of people who are posting here didn’t watch the video, and it is frustrating that my state is maligned so much for its rampant stupidity.

It was confusing for me going to school with the Asian students I did (my middle school was about 1/4 Asian, 1/4 Hispanic, 1/4 “white, non-Hispanic”, and 1/4 African American) because they had multiple names, and they varied which name they used depending on whether they were socializing with a Chinese-American, a Japanese-American, or a “white, non-Hispanic.” Their Asian name was on the roll, but they used an English name in class. And their test scores sometimes got messed up (good old ITBS) because they tried to use their English name on their tests instead of their Asian name. So I understand Ms. Brown’s (poorly worded) argument that people who have non-English names should use that name solely on official documents, and stick to one spelling.

Yes, she words it very poorly, more a faux pas than anything else.

Being Swedish living in Japan I can attest to the problems with spelling of names though. PROFBLAH suggests that you stick with one name when dealing with government. Well, it is not that easy! Cause you see, there are several of them, and they tend to draw from different sources. I have on name on my passport in Swedish, one name in English, one name in Greek. I also have one name variation from my city office here in Japan (that they decided). The ministry of justice and the immigration bureau used a second variation (that they also decided by themselves). For work my boss picked one variation he thought was correct (which phonetically, is the best one so far), but there are two other variations floating around (on in HR and one in official releases/information).

Now, my landlord uses the one I gave him (the easiest one for most people to use). The bank picked on by themselves that is completely mistaken and they give me hell every day for it.

So, no, it isn’t so easy. And mistakes happen. That’s why most civilized countries use social security numbers. Figures are harder to mess up.

We should establish a bureau to hand out names.

Norman Conquest, Polly Wanacracker, Sam Francisco.

Brillant!! (sic)

If I may suggest a small change to your post:

Fort what it’s worth, I like Texas.

You’re welcome…

Fort what it’s Worth, I like Texas.

Or Bruce:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_p0CgPeyA

They loves democracy so much they just gotta vote like its goin’ outta fashion. Yeeeeeehah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfhO38CPlAI

Before people flame her- WATCH THE VIDEO. I want to jump on the “point out Texan stupidity” bandwagon, but I hate to dissapoint you- her arguement and his are BOTH valid, and good.

She specifically said they don’t need to change their name, just agree on a standard/consistent way of transcribing it to English for identity conformation. For someone with a non-linugistic background, that’s actually a reasonable thing to say- she doesn’t know deeply about transcription systems.

So Mr.Doctorow, it seems your title is a bit inflammatory. Not intentional, perhaps, but it doesn’t look good to an observer. Still, I may have worded it the same way for brevity too- transliteration is a complex subject.

The speaker is correct- there are roughly 3 major transliteration styles for Japanese, more if you mix them like I do (custom personal use for ease of understanding when needed). I had to deal with this very issue throughout college learning Japanese, and I have problems DAILY here in Japan getting things properly billed to me, because of my name- some places have me leave out my middle name, some have me change my name’s order to Japanese style, and all interact with each other.

I had the gas company billing me with only knowing half of my last name because it didn’t fit in a Japanese form- so they were suprised when I corrected them. Technically, I could have refused to pay, since that wasn’t my name.

This kind of stuff happens all the time- in large part because academics can’t seem to agree with themselves or with governments to use a single, official system of foreign name/character transliteration.

Japan, for example- most signs/tourist use romanized Japanese seen in society use simple Hepburn style, but Japanese school kids/Japanese learning how to romanize their language IN JAPAN are forced to learn one of/a combination of the other 2 major styles, Kunrei shiki or Nihon Shiki, which transcribe to the Japanese symbols better, but look much less pronouncable to normal westerners with no linguistic background. This happens to some westerners in college, too, who don’t learn the difference- I’ve seen it in major universities go uncorrected!

IE: し (pronounced close to “she” in Japanese, written as “shi” in Hepburn, but written as “si” in Nihon&Kunrei shiki systems.) This works better for computers, but for Westerners trying to read the romanized Japanese in English, it comes out sounding like the Spanish word for Yes.

These little differences confuse the Japanese when I explain it to kids here, when to use each, and Westerners like this Texas lawmaker are just as confused.

Chinese though? A language with multiple tones/intonations, and the same base sound? Pinyon romanization must be a NIGHTMARE for Americanized Chinese.

So, I don’t know how hard it would be for Chinese here, but I speak with years and years of experience, and several thousand students and colleges under my belt when I say it’s not easy for Japanese. Not the system differences themselves so much as IMPLEMENTING a single one, with everyone, non-academics alike.

So laugh at this if you want, but it’s a serious issue- especially for languages just now being transcribed to western romanization for the first time.

This is an ongoing problem, and we need solutions to it as a society, and an agreement with academics to inform governments when to use which.

It seems to me that the thing people are most likely to object to is the exaggeration about the government having to learn Chinese. However, if you listen to the whole conversation it could have been the lawmaker’s understanding that he was requesting that the government train it’s employees to be able to recognize the same name spelled using several different transliteration systems.

This is obviously impractical give the number of different employees that would have to be trained on these systems including simple volunteers at things like polling stations and that’s just for Chinese… what about other languages?

Although learning to spot transliteration variations isn’t the same thing as learning Chinese, someone who is unfamiliar with the complexities of transliteration (which she seemed to be) might mistake it for learning a substantial portion of a foreign language.

Also, to be clear, she outright says “I’m not talking about changing your name” at 0:51 and she mentions the term “transliteration” before he describes it on camera, so he must have introduced something about it earlier.

I forgot to mention- my legal name in Japan IS transcribed into Japanese from English- and I still have problems due to it being long- so #12, I feel your pain.

And #15- in a perfect world, we could all learn to pronounce each other’s dialect perfectly. In this world, that’s unrealistic. It’s a reasonable expectation to learn a single person’s name properly upon meeting them, but for 99.9% of the world, people will make mistakes trying to properly do so until they get the real pronunciation right. Language is complex, and pronunciation is difficult for non-native speakers of any language. That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try, we should, but to expect government workers everywhere to properly understand all foreign name pronunciation properly is absurd. We can ask them to try, and most will.

It’s only the people who, like at Ellis Island, FORCE people from other places to change their natural name to a local name unrelated to heritage, so people don’t have to learn that language’s pronunciation with the name, that are wrong! Those people are still around, and disgust me.

You know the ones. “Hey, “Xeni”! What kinda name is that? Zhe-heni? Zehni? Whos-a-what, hur hur hur? I can’t say that, so you’z need to stop spellin’ yur name so funny. Yer name’s “JENNY”, you need to learn how to spell yer name right, girl!”

Apologies to the lovely and talented Xeni- but I’m sure she’s run into that problem before. People calling her “Zeni” or something. That doesn’t mean her name is wrong or it should be changed- people just need to ask her how it’s pronounced, and remember how to address her, because that’s her name! I wondered for a while how to say it, until I heard her introduce herself on BB video.

Greetings usually settle this kind of stuff.