[Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns

[Aaron Kuperman]

Perhaps there is since the Hebraicized Yiddish name is a
"naturalized" Hebrew word, but the Hebraicized Italian name isn't. One
should ask how Israelis pronounce the name. There is some evidence that
Hebrew speakers with the name "Mario" pronounce it the way it is
pronounced in Italian and English

Which gets to historical question, should the purpose of romanization be
to facilitate access to the catalog by users, even if this requires
catalogers to do more research to find a form that users prefer. Our
competition (the "google" approach, which some argue should replace
our's) aims to enter authors under the names that the authors and users
prefer rather than an artificial construct devised by catalogers and
linguists.

Aaron

On Mon, 28 Nov 2011, Biella, Joan wrote:


> Is there a difference between saying that the Italian name "Mario" should be "romanized" as "Mario" rather than "Mariyo" and saying that the German name "Goldstein" should be "romanized" as "Goldstein" rather than "Goldshtain"?
> 
> Joan
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Aaron Kuperman
> Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 7:31 PM
> To: Heb-naco at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: [Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns
> 
> A similar question to the issue for Breslev/Braslav is raised whenever we encounter a proper noun that is written in Hebrew without nekudot. I recall a recent argument over the Italian/English forename "Mario" which based on the internet is uniformly romanized, and I believe pronounced, by users of that forename the same way it is written in Italian and English
> -- yet according to current policy is romanized in catalog records as if it was a Hebrew word, leading to a romanization that it unrecognizable.
> 
> 
> Perhaps there should be a rule that non-Hebrew proper nouns should be romanized based on how users routinely romanize them, rather than trying to base a rule that applies Hebrew grammatical principles to non-Hebrew words.
> 
> And yes, I am primarily a subject cataloger who believes access points should reflect user needs rather than cataloger convenience (though in some ways RDA is moving more in that direction, at least in theory, at least according to Barbara Tillet).
> 
> Aaron Wolfe Kuperman
> Library of Congress, ABA USPL, Law Cataloging Section
> 
> 
> 
> This is DEFINITELY NOT an official communication from the Library of Congress.
> 
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Aaron Wolfe Kuperman
Library of Congress, ABA USPL, Law Cataloging Section

This is NOT an official communication from the Library of Congress.