Which pronunciation of 'Bajor' is more correct?
- Thread starter kitsune
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I'm not sure which version you're thinking of, but does the accent also change?
Because personally, I believe that "BAY-jor" is closer to the native pronunciation, whereas "ba-JOR" is a Cardassian-accented pronunciation.
Because personally, I believe that "BAY-jor" is closer to the native pronunciation, whereas "ba-JOR" is a Cardassian-accented pronunciation.
Who says that there is such thing as "the native [Bajoran] pronunciation"? All those different pronunciations may be native - in different parts of Bajor. Humans don't even all use the same word for "Earth" and "Human" in various languages, I'd be very surprised if Bajorans not just have the same name for their planet in every one of their languages, but also the same pronunciation.
Personally, I say BAY-jor and ba-JOR-an.
For the purposes of discussion, I tend to assume that in the Trekiverse, a lingua franca exists on each world that has a united government (or has had one in its past), but that except in the case of totalitarian worlds this does not preclude the existence of other dialects and languages that are not heard onscreen. (Now, I DO see Cardassia, in my own view, as having deliberately wiped out its other languages. Bajor--I imagine it has many, but that one is used for official purposes.)
"Bayshore." That's in New Jersey, right? 
Need to ask a Bajoran. 
I'd lean towards the "Bay-dzhor"-like one, simply because the easiest explanation for the two pronunciations is that whoever first rendered that into Federation Anglic decided to spell that with a "j", and the other pronunciation came about because of people saying it the way it is spelled.
Sort of like how the aboriginal north american word "ill-en-wah" became the American English state name "ill-in-oy": somebody wrote what they heard in French, then some English-speakers mispronounced the French.
You'll find Bajorans saying it both ways because some of them pronounce it correctly, and some of them say it the way they know Federation people expect it to be said. Sort of like Hong Kong: that's not what it's really called in Chinese, but folks from there might call it that just to save on the misunderstandings.
Bejing, Beiping, and Peking are all attempts to render the same place name into the English alphabet after all.
I kind of had a leg up on this one: my family name is actually from Irish Gaelic, so I am used to crude approximations of sounds that don't really exist in English.
I'd lean towards the "Bay-dzhor"-like one, simply because the easiest explanation for the two pronunciations is that whoever first rendered that into Federation Anglic decided to spell that with a "j", and the other pronunciation came about because of people saying it the way it is spelled.
Sort of like how the aboriginal north american word "ill-en-wah" became the American English state name "ill-in-oy": somebody wrote what they heard in French, then some English-speakers mispronounced the French.
You'll find Bajorans saying it both ways because some of them pronounce it correctly, and some of them say it the way they know Federation people expect it to be said. Sort of like Hong Kong: that's not what it's really called in Chinese, but folks from there might call it that just to save on the misunderstandings.
Bejing, Beiping, and Peking are all attempts to render the same place name into the English alphabet after all.
I kind of had a leg up on this one: my family name is actually from Irish Gaelic, so I am used to crude approximations of sounds that don't really exist in English.
I prefer the idea that they pronounce it differently because they come or originate from different parts of Bajor. Names are differently pronounced on Earth even within a same language and in a small geographical area, regional differences often include different accents. Here in the city where I live I could easily find people who pronounce its name in a different way than I do (usually indicative of where their parents came from). Why should we assume that other planets would be so incredibly monolithic?
Was that the name of the species in that episode or for the certain cell of the resistance?
...Indeed, one wonders if the entire idea of "Bajorans" isn't a linguistic misconception on the part of the UFP.
We worry about the native pronunciation of "Bajoran", but it might be as absurd as worrying about the native pronunciation of "German" - the Deutsche Volk don't have a native pronunciation for that word, because it's not a German word! Okay, that's slight exaggeration: they know of the tribe called Germans, but they don't identify with that tribe (or with the Allemands or the Saxons or other such tribes that have given rise to foreign names for the people living in Germany). They identify with the same folks who gave rise to the Dutch, etymologically speaking.
Perhaps no Bajoran really identifies with the group calling themselves "Bajora" in the Bajoran language - yet the Feds who first met the Bajorans through meeting people from the "Bajora" group have adopted this name for the entire culture, species and planet. The native name for the people might well be something like Virashaki, the planet could be Urku, and the most common language there might be Losini.
...And all that would be lost thanks to the Universal Translator which has certain ideas about how to turn Bajoran terminology into the accepted English counterparts.
But going by the above alternative theory, perhaps the different "pronunciations" are merely how the UT deals with the varying desperate attempts of the natives to get the real names across? That is, according to the UT, Virashaki is pronounced "Bah-Yore" while Urku is pronounced "Bay-Jour"...
Timo Saloniemi
We worry about the native pronunciation of "Bajoran", but it might be as absurd as worrying about the native pronunciation of "German" - the Deutsche Volk don't have a native pronunciation for that word, because it's not a German word! Okay, that's slight exaggeration: they know of the tribe called Germans, but they don't identify with that tribe (or with the Allemands or the Saxons or other such tribes that have given rise to foreign names for the people living in Germany). They identify with the same folks who gave rise to the Dutch, etymologically speaking.
Perhaps no Bajoran really identifies with the group calling themselves "Bajora" in the Bajoran language - yet the Feds who first met the Bajorans through meeting people from the "Bajora" group have adopted this name for the entire culture, species and planet. The native name for the people might well be something like Virashaki, the planet could be Urku, and the most common language there might be Losini.
...And all that would be lost thanks to the Universal Translator which has certain ideas about how to turn Bajoran terminology into the accepted English counterparts.
That's the interpretation I also favor now (Picard would have learned the name from his Cardassian contacts, but Sisko would have more authentic knowledge, plus a couple of years of closer UFP/Bajor interaction to set him straight from the start).
But going by the above alternative theory, perhaps the different "pronunciations" are merely how the UT deals with the varying desperate attempts of the natives to get the real names across? That is, according to the UT, Virashaki is pronounced "Bah-Yore" while Urku is pronounced "Bay-Jour"...
Timo Saloniemi
My German flatmate pronounces your state/area as Oh-tay-go, when us Kiwis' pronounce it as Oh-taa-Go. 'Otago'
See?
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