# Is "Oak" The Roman alphabet transliteration of any non-English proper names? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 21, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317 "2020-02-21T17:54:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/1 "2020-02-21T17:54:10Z")
For reasons opaque to me, VoiceOver — the feature on my iPhone that reads whatever is on the screen to blind people — has started pronouncing the word “Oak” as if it were spelled “oh-uk”. When VoiceOver behaves this way, it is generally for one of two reasons. Frequently it is simple stupidity on the part of Apple, like the phone’s insistence on reading Mrs. letter by letter. But sometimes it is because the word in its capitalize form is a proper name in another language but pronounced differently than in English, such as that of the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. This mostly happens when the name belongs to a famous person. So are there any famous people whose names, from a language other than English, art transliterated oak but pronounced as I described? ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2020, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/2 "2020-02-21T20:05:08Z")
Google Maps pronounces “Old” as “Oh-ald”. I think it’s just that text-to-speech is not perfected. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2020, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/3 "2020-02-21T21:10:29Z")
I used my Google GPS to try to find the Redding Rancheria in Northern California (Rancheria is the word used in California for Native American reservation), and the GPS kept pronouncing it as Ran-CHAIR-ee-a. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2020, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/4 "2020-02-22T00:31:45Z")
I had a Magellan GPS one time that pronounced Buckeye as boo-KIY ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2020, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/5 "2020-02-22T06:14:07Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > I used my Google GPS to try to find the Redding Rancheria in Northern California (Rancheria is the word used in California for Native American reservation), and the GPS kept pronouncing it as Ran-CHAIR-ee-a. Wikipedia shows the word spelled “[Ranchería](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancher%C3%ADa)” (note the accent), which I suppose clarifies things. (Although I rarely see it actually written that way.) Without the accent, I’d have been inclined to pronounce it like you describe here. Well, more like Ran-CHAIR-ya really. Do any or all of the text-to-voice aps mentioned here understand accent marks? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2020, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/6 "2020-02-22T06:26:43Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Wikipedia shows the word spelled “[Ranchería](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancher%C3%ADa)” (note the accent), which I suppose clarifies things. (Although I rarely see it actually written that way.) Without the accent, I’d have been inclined to pronounce it like you describe here. Well, more like Ran-CHAIR-ya really. > > Do any or all of the text-to-voice aps mentioned here understand accent marks? I use Waze here in Panama and use the English version (which has the voice of a young woman) in part because of the hilarity of the mispronunciations. For example, it pronounces Avenida de los Mártires (which in Spanish is MAR-ti-res) as MAR-tires (like what’s on a car). It’s not just the accent marks, it’s the syllabification. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/7 "2020-02-22T22:12:13Z")
My son was here last summer with a rented car with a GPS. The pronunciation it gave to French words was hilarious. E.g chemin–road–(pronounced roughly sheman) kept getting said as kemin. Why the k? The ch is not pronounced as a k in either French or English (chemical, notwithstanding). ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/8 "2020-02-23T01:49:25Z")
Not seeing anything obvious here: > **[Oak (disambiguation)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_(disambiguation))** > > An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus in the plant family Fagaceae. > Oak or OAK may also refer to: What I did discover, to my surprise, is that the pronunciation guide for place names on Wikipedia is not as completist as I had come to expect from, perhaps them being more common for bios. I would have thought this would have been a universally standardized data set by now. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/9 "2020-02-23T02:43:42Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > What I did discover, to my surprise, is that the pronunciation guide for place names on Wikipedia is not as completist as I had come to expect from, perhaps them being more common for bios. Unfortunately, no pronunciation guide in the Wikipedia biography for P. N. Oak. If I could transliterate that into Hindi or Urdu, I could probably get a pronunciation guide from the WWW. But I can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2020, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/10 "2020-02-24T18:28:33Z")
I watch (for some reason) a lot of videos on YouTube that are basically reddit threads, read aloud by a text to speech program. I’m tempted to stop because of the stupid errors consistently made by the TTS program, which really gets on one’s nerves, especially since these same problems have been present for years. They could fix them! Examples: TL;DR becomes “Tee-ell, Doctor” All caps to indicate shouting: “STOP IT” becomes “Stop eye-tee” 1,000,000 becomes “one…zero zero zero…zero zero zero” which takes about 10 painful seconds to hear. They should instead say “a million” which would take no more than one second. And this one really gets me: Facebook invariably becomes “Fah-se-book” WTF?? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/11 "2020-02-24T22:33:52Z")
The converse of all of this is voice-to-text, as commonly seen for example in captioning on TV, where likewise interesting bloopers abound. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2020, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/12 "2020-02-24T22:50:24Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > The converse of all of this is voice-to-text, as commonly seen for example in captioning on TV, where likewise interesting bloopers abound. I use voice to text all the time, the logical consequence of blindness. That said, television closed captioning is often done by human beings. Cinderella the Rhymer has held down such a job at least twice that I know of when she needed extra money. I think the mistakes in those cases arise from the necessity of humans having to type very quickly. As I think on it, my early 2000’s job of being a relay operator for the deaf was basically creating voice to text (Until I started doing sign language interpretation for the same company). It’s not easy. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/13 "2020-02-25T12:32:37Z")
Not really what you’re looking for, but somewhat relevant, and interesting: In Horace’s _Odes_ appears the line > [@](#): > > Illi robur et aes triplex circa pectus erat, > qui fragilem truci commisit pelago ratem primus – This translates as > [@](#): > > there was both oak and a triple layer of bronze around the heart > of he who first launched a frail craft on the savage open sea That quote explains two minor mysteries in science fiction that I’d wondered about. “aes triplex” is the title of one chapter in Robert Heinlein’s _Space Cadet_. I thought the “AES” must be an abbreviation, like _Atomic Energy Ship_ or something, with “Triplex”: the ship’s name, but it means “three plates of Brass”, and refers to ship construction, although here it’s applied to the constitution of the first sailor. Similarly, “Robur” means “Oak”. I always wondered about the name of the hero of Jules Verne’s _Robur the Conqueror_ (and its sequel _Master of the World_) – it seemed such a weird name. Here’s where it comes from. It’s almost certainly not his name, but a Latin pseudonym , much like Captain Nemo’s name (and Robur is basically a flying Captain Nemo, in his sky-going _Albatross_ – and later The _Terror_ – instead of a sea-going _Nautilus_). It also implies that Robur must have a “heart of oak” to dare to “set sail” on the air. So “Oak” IS a name, provided you allow such artificial coinages. But I don’t know of anywhere where it’s pronounced the way you say. > **[Robur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robur)** > > Robur is Latin for "hard timber" or "oak", and, by metaphorical extension, "strength". It can refer to: ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2020, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-oak-the-roman-alphabet-transliteration-of-any-non-english-proper-names/848317/14 "2020-02-25T16:51:45Z")
I have heard “oak” pronounced “oh-uk” occasionally (by native-born Americans). Been a long time so I can’t remember what region they were from…