In a recent post, I discussed the lack of concern by Brunei newscasters about how they pronounce foreign names; and I had always been under the impression that the BBC took more care over it. After all, they have a pronunciation unit whose job it is to give advice over the issue.
Last night, I watched the BBC programme HARDtalk, in which Zainab Badawi was interviewing the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, Mehmet Şimşek, and inevitably much of the discussion involved the President of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan.
Throughout the programme, Zainab Badawi pronounced Erdogan as [ɜːdəʊɡæn], while Mehmet Şimşek pronounced it with no [ɡ], as is usual in Turkish - the 'g' is a silent letter.
So, why did Zainab Badawi persist on pronouncing it wrongly? Did she fail to notice that her pronunciation deviated so obviously from the native speaker? Or did she believe that the anglicised version of the name should have a [ɡ] in it, even if the Turkish pronunciation has no [ɡ]?
It seems that the BBC is not as careful about getting foreign names right as I believed.
