Talk:My Ántonia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Novels
Literature Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Novels, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to narrative novels, novellas, novelettes and short stories on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit one of the articles mentioned below, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and contribute to the general Project discussion to talk over new ideas and suggestions.
Start This article has been rated as start-Class.
High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.
Assessment comments

do you know of any online literary critics of this book? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.188.117.68 (talk • contribs) 21:38 23 September 2005.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. BTW, diacritics don't hurt... ;) —Nightstallion (?) 08:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Requested move

My Antonia → My Ántonia – Requesting a move to the novel's correct title. --Muchness 02:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
  • Support per nom. David Kernow 03:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: accent unneeded. Thumbelina 18:06, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support: no reason not to use correct accents, and it will encourage the rest of Wikipedia to spell the name right.--Prosfilaes 21:45, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Version with accent is more informative. Haukur 00:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Common English usage --Philip Baird Shearer 14:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments
  • about 19,500 English pages for -"My Antonia" "My Ántonia" Cather -wikipedia
  • about 204,000 English pages for "My Antonia" -"My Ántonia" Cather -wikipedia

--Philip Baird Shearer 14:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Version with accent is more informative. Haukur 00:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

How? --Philip Baird Shearer 14:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
It suggests that the accent is on the first syllable rather than the second. Haukur 15:14, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
That's skewed by the fact that we are talking about an accent, which in casual typing usually won't be used. All of the references scholar.google.com turned up that I looked at that weren't transcribed, the accent was used. (Note that I searched for My Antonia, and it found many versions with the accent, so there's no easy way to count here.) It's the name of a English book; since we're arguing over one accent, why not go with the correct version?--Prosfilaes 04:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

[edit] Pronunciation

An editor has been adding some potentially contentious material regarding the pronunciation of Ántonia: [1]. This looks like unverified original research to me: making a claim without providing substantiating references from reliable sources. If a reliable source (i.e., not an editor's first-hand assertions) can be provided to address this issue, I won't object to its addition to the article. --Muchness 02:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The following exchange copied & pasted from User talk:68.42.133.153:

Why don't you ask a Czech professor about the correct pronounciation. Try Jindřich Toman at the University of Michigan:

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/slavic/dept/faculty/toman.html

Regards, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.133.153 (talk • contribs) 02:08, 26 August 2007

Hello, the problem is that information in Wikipedia articles must be sourced to reliable references. Your statements about Cather may be true, but without providing supporting evidence they constitute original research – that is, unpublished facts and unpublished analysis. What is needed is a source that meets Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources that addresses this issue and substantiates your statements. Regards. --Muchness 02:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


OK, here's the problem. The Czech form of the name is Antonie (no written accent). The Slovak form is Antónia. Cather's usage (Ántonia) is attested in neither Czech nor Slovak. We're told in the novel that Ántonia is Bohemian, so we should supposedly focus on the Czech pronounciation. Still, one must wonder why Cather came closer to the Slovak spelling. Unless your editors are Czech linguists I'm not sure that they can say anything to the point. It's Cather's novel so she's free to misspell or mispronounce the name as she sees fit -- but it is important for readers to realize that it is a misspelling and mispronounciation.

Regards,

Regardless of how the name was or might have been pronounced in Czech, Slovak or any Bohemian dialect, Cather gave clear instructions in the book on how it was to be pronounced in the novel: "The Bohemian name Antonia is strongly accented on the first syllable, like the English name Anthony, and the 'i' is, of course, given the sound of long 'e'. The name is pronounced An'-ton-ee-ah." Was she in error? Perhaps, or just perhaps the variety of Bohemian pronounced in rural Nebraska, half a world from its homeland, was different from that of the standard language. It seems to me that it's clear how Cather intended us to pronounce the name.Interlingua 03:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)