Why for some it's not easy for some to pronounce KAMALA!

Why Kamala Harris's pronunciation of her own name isn't so straightforward for Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart of the podcast 'The Rest is Politics'

0:00 Introduction
1:09 Kamala's origins
1:32 Nativizing exotic words
4:04 Not nativizing exotic words
7:29 Trisyllabic shortening
9:11 Comma?
10:47 The Between Insight
11:56 Rory's learning curve

[faffrin]

"But Americans are now in agreement that a galaxy far, far away is exotic enough to require the taco treatment." 👏👏👏

[WhatIsRukiUpTo]

What I expected- a 1 min video explaining the pronunciation.
What I did not expect -a 13 min video on how native English speakers will never get my name right. 😂 well done sir 👏

[Landoverse]

“They’re DIFFERENT vowels!”

Lol like speaking to a five year-old…My American ass very much appreciated the pointer😂

[DontSigh]

It's funny how people are so unaware of their own accent/linguistic limitations/biases, especially in situations that specifically concern tricky pronunciations

[swatiparasnis]

Indian here, fluent in two sanskrit-based languages. Kamala is usually pronounced "Come-uh-laa" in most Indian languages. The "la" like in "father". While speaking it often gets constricted to "Come-la" especially in the northern parts of India.

[Hananotaka]

For what it’s worth, as an American kid in the 80s, who knew nothing of karma, I thought Boy George was saying “Comma Chameleon.” It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then, little in 80s music did.

[krishna_omkar]

Geoff — thanks for this video. Just a note for 1:11 — her name in Sanskrit is *not* KAMAL कमल /kə.mələ/ (ending in schwa in Sanskrit, but eliding the terminal schwa in Hindi so it sounds more like /kə.məl/), which means lotus. Her name is कमला /kə.məl.a:/ ( ending in long “aa”), which is an epithet of the Goddess Lakshmi, meaning “she who is of the lotus”, because the Goddess is depicted standing or sitting on a lotus flower. Her middle name is “Devi”, meaning goddess, or Kamala Devi, which clarifies things.

[LeCrenn]

I was going to comment that it isn't difficult to pronounce Kamala, but am so glad I watched the video first. Your analysis was fascinating. Not just how you explained foreign words being naturalized, but also the differences between American and British vowels. Also, I didn't realize there were so many people on tv struggling to say it the way she does herself, nor that people were feeling that was necessary. I'm sure the Vice President doesn't mind hearing her name pronounced with a British accent. (And thank you for pointing out how the right is weaponizing the more exotic, foreign sounding pronunciation.)

[jeff__w]

3:20 “Americans say ‘gala.’”
As someone in the US, I _love_ when you do a US accent—it’s almost like how a generation of US airline pilots imitated US Air Force officer and test pilot Chuck Yeager.

[OldWhitebelly]

These subtle *between* vowels make this all so much fun. We are all so unaware of how incredibly rich and subtle the things we say are. It's so much fun finding out.

[lamewater]

If anyone wants to know the indian pronunciation, there's a tamil song "kamala kalasa" lol, you can hear her name multiple times iterated in it

[reidleblanc]

It baffles me that none of these people speaking on wide public forums even bothered to LOOK UP the pronunciation. That’s what I did, the second I learned about her, and I don’t think I’ve ever even said it out loud.

[Dant]

I love watching these UK vs USA videos because it feels like here in Australia we have a chaotic mix of both. I'll be like "hey we still have that British pronunciation here" and immediately after that there'll be one where it tends more towards the American side.

[DemianUsul]

it's funny that as a Spanish native speaker I can understand the video, but I cant hear the differences between most of the non nativizing strategies 😅

[jenfoley]

Thank you for explaining why it is difficult for people to pronounce sounds that are outside their phonetic system. For the past few years a number of memes have been circulating implying that there is some malicious intent when someone is unable to pronounce a name like a native speaker and that if only they cared enough to put in a minute amount of effort, they could do so. Having studied linguistics, I understood this is not the case. My name starts with a "J, " a sound that does not exist in many languages. If someone can't pronounce my name the way I do because English isn't their first language, I've never assumed any malicious intent or laziness on their part and it's never bothered me. I wish more people understood this.

[adityasshukla]

The hilarious part is that most Indian-Americans pronounce their names wrong themselves. They don't want to lose the game of accent. A popular one that I have heard frequently is "Patel" which they pronounce as "Pa-tell" when it actually is "Puh-tail". Born English speakers can easily pronounce this word, wonder why they don't.

[VikingTeddy]

In Finnish, Kamala means "horrible" 😊, so our media never uses her first name.

[lt]

The comment about Donald Sutherland, a Canadian, not doing an American style pronunciation of foreign words is spot on for an older generations of Canadians. As Donald Sutherland was born in 1935, he would not have had the influence of American tv growing up and his pronunciation is closer to what a Scottish or English person would say in terms of short vowels in Nazi, mafia and Vietnam. Another example of this vintage Canadian voice is from another actor of Sutherland's generation, Christopher Plummer, who was born in 1929. Most younger Canadians sound more like Americans: many older ones call their mothers Mum like British people, whereas many younger ones call their mothers the American equivalent: Mom.

[CrookedKnight-xlnn]

Indian with knowledge of Sanskrit here. I have actually heard even Kamala saying her name wrong possibly to make it easier for native English speakers with too much stress on the first syllable. None of them are long syllables or stressed syllables in Kamala. Each of them sounds like the vowel ‘u’ in bruh’ or ‘o’ brother. Kuh-muh-luh sometimes in speech kuh-muh-laa. Kind of sounds like come-a-lot. Also, it is a soft unaspirated k like in kite, not the hard kh - or c in come.

A lot of the ‘a’s in Indian names are actually like the last ‘a’ at the end of the word pasta. Same with the word karma. Both the ‘a’s are short

English needs a lot more distinct vowels and consonants is all I can say :)

[justalildream]

Native Tamil speaker here. The correct pronunciation for “கமலா” (Kamala) in English phonetics is:

Ka-ma-lā

Here’s a breakdown:

• Ka: as in “cup”
• ma: as in “mother”
• lā: where the “lā” is pronounced with a soft ‘a’ like in “car, ” and a slight emphasis on the ‘l’ sound.