I don't actually own a smartphone, but this video's been making the rounds since the introduction of Siri with the new iP***e. I thought I'd just make a small phonetics-related comment.
Listening to the speaker, the main problem here is his production of the NURSE vowel (typically /ɜ/ or /ɜr/), which is a notoriously problematic one for many a non-native English speaker. The Japanese speaker produces the vowel closer to the THOUGHT vowel (typically /ɔ/). I'm just surprised that with a binary option: 'work' or 'home', Siri doesn't just go with what sounds closer to the 'work' option (but I'm not one who knows anything about programming, so I'll let the techsperts deal with that.)
I'm a little late to talk about this, but for the past 2 weeks, people have been talking about how siri means 'buttocks' in Japanese. Some people like this guy at TechnoBuffalo argue that it doesn't (it means nothing he claims). The thing is, technically, the 's' /s/ sound in Japanese never comes before the 'i' /i/ vowel: think of Japanese words that have been borrowed into English, like sushi, where 's' can precede the 'u' /ɯ/ vowel, but 'sh' /ʃ/ comes before 'i''.
However, in some transliterations of Japanese, you will see the word for 'I' written as both watashi and watasi. The reason is, as stated above, that the 's' sound can't come before 'i' and must be replaced by 'sh'. Therefore by default, the si in watasi will be read as shi. So siri by default, will be pronounced like shiri, which the internet would have me believe is Japanese for 'buttocks'.
Listening to the speaker, the main problem here is his production of the NURSE vowel (typically /ɜ/ or /ɜr/), which is a notoriously problematic one for many a non-native English speaker. The Japanese speaker produces the vowel closer to the THOUGHT vowel (typically /ɔ/). I'm just surprised that with a binary option: 'work' or 'home', Siri doesn't just go with what sounds closer to the 'work' option (but I'm not one who knows anything about programming, so I'll let the techsperts deal with that.)
I'm a little late to talk about this, but for the past 2 weeks, people have been talking about how siri means 'buttocks' in Japanese. Some people like this guy at TechnoBuffalo argue that it doesn't (it means nothing he claims). The thing is, technically, the 's' /s/ sound in Japanese never comes before the 'i' /i/ vowel: think of Japanese words that have been borrowed into English, like sushi, where 's' can precede the 'u' /ɯ/ vowel, but 'sh' /ʃ/ comes before 'i''.
However, in some transliterations of Japanese, you will see the word for 'I' written as both watashi and watasi. The reason is, as stated above, that the 's' sound can't come before 'i' and must be replaced by 'sh'. Therefore by default, the si in watasi will be read as shi. So siri by default, will be pronounced like shiri, which the internet would have me believe is Japanese for 'buttocks'.
"shiri"/"siri" does indeed mean "buttocks", as in the idiom 屁を放って尻窄め (he wo hitte siri tubome/he o hitte shiri tsubome), meaning "There's no use squeezing your buttocks after you've already farted" (literally, "fart then squeeze buttocks")
ReplyDeleteThis nixes a romantic idea I had that, while Siri is simply the name Apple inherited from Siri's creators SRI (making an initialism pronounceable), perhaps the Buddhist Steve Jobs kept it for its similarity to the Sanskrit-rooted Sri (= 'illuminate'), as in Sri Lanka. Except that Jobs practised Zen Buddhism.
ReplyDeleteIn Thailand it becomes Si in place names like Nakhon Si Thamarat. In Malay, Sri or Seri forms part of some honorific titles. I wonder, has this root entered Japanese in any form? Siri is 'smile' in Tamil by the way.
Unfortunately, the only Sanskrit root I know to have entered Japanese is the often mentioned example of 'zen' coming from 'dhyana'...
ReplyDelete