Friday, September 15, 2006

Anti- 'American Ignorance'

My idea is that we change the names of the different countries to an English version of what they call themselves. For example, we would pronounce and spell Mexico as Mehico.

Germany would be Deutschland. Spain would be Espanya (we don't have the "squiggly n"). France is Francais. Canada would be Can... a... da... (I know I have a few Canadian readers, I'm really sorry. I'm not talking about you). And England would stay the same, just said in a really stupid accent.

There are some countries that have sounds in their languages that we don't have in English. We'll just get it as close as possible. For example, Hungary is like Magyar or something, and you say the g in a weird way. But Mag-yar is good enough. It's a hell of a lot closer than Hungary!

I know what you're thinking, I don't want to have to say "Espanya" like an arrogant prick. Don't worry we can say Espanya with our disgustingly offensive American accents, so it's not much of a concession.

Changing the names to ones that are closer to that of each country would allow us to be more empathetic to the rest of the world. For example, the joke "three guys from Poland walk into a bar..." is just wrong and hurtful. But if we change the joke to "three guys from Polska walk into a bar..." then it's funny and culturally sensitive. And that's what America is all about!

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