This question will reveal that I don’t really understand accent marks, so feel free to point and laugh.
If a person with an originally Spanish surname changes the pronunciation, should the accent marks change as well?
This question is inspired by Major League Baseball finally adding accent marks to the jerseys of players with Spanish surnames. But there is a player, Chris Gimenez, who does not pronounce his name in the traditional way. Instead, it’s pronounced with an Americanized soft g/j first consonant (as in George or Jim), and the emphasis is on the first syllable.
So, if I were to write his name as Giménez, is that a misspelling? Or is it some other sort of error? Or is it accurate because that’s the origin of the name even if he doesn’t pronounce it that way? (My maiden name is very German, and we didn’t change the spelling, but we don’t pronounce it the German way either.) Does it hinge entirely on whether he uses the accent mark himself?
Accent marks in Spanish only denote stress. Unmarked Spanish words are accented on the last syllable unless they end in a vowel, s, or n in which case it’s the penultimate syllable. A marked word is accented on the marked syllable
Gimenez should be pronounced gi me NEZ
Giménez should be pronounced gi ME nez.
(That’s always a short e like in get regardless of the accent mark.)
This has nothing to do with the sound of the G.
In Spanish a G in front of an a o or u is hard like the g in got. In front of an e or i it’s more like a raspy h.
All of this has regional/dialect variations.
I believe in some dialects g in front of i is pronounced like an English soft g (or j) so ji ME nez or ji me NEZ.
It’s often pronounced by announcers GI men ez. Neither spelling would indicate that to a Spanish speaker.
I would think the spelling is determined much like the pronunciation – it’s at the discretion of the person named. There are many American Mullers, Lefevres, and Nguyens – but far fewer Müllers, Lefèvres, and Nguyễns.
When to change the orthography of a name when writing in a different language is a sticky issue. There may not be a clear solution.
Gimenez is an American, born in California. Since he’s neither a native of a (majority) Spanish speaking country, doesn’t pronounce his name according to Spanish rules, and English does not usually use diacritical marks (there are some exceptions), I would say there would be no need to use one in publications in English.
A Spanish-speaker might write Gímenez to indicate the stress, but as mentioned the pronunciation of the “G” as English “J” does not match any pronunciation of that letter in Spanish. Therefore the most logical thing to do might be to treat it as if it were an English name, and despite its origin not use an accent.
Since the object of using accents in Spanish is (mostly) to indicate the pronunciation, I wouldn’t see a reason why a Spanish speaker would write the name Giménez.
When you’re talking about a personal name, no, it’s not an error. Your name is what you are called and if people call you Ginenez without an accent, well, that’s your name. Proper names, notoriously, have lots of variant spellings, and no one of them is “correct” as against all the others.
I would say it would be a spelling error, since the accent is part of the way a word is spelled. Its most common use is to indicate the placement of the stress in a word, but it also distinguishes between homonyms, words which sound the same but differ in meaning.
té = tea
te = you
sí = yes
si = if
él = he
el = the
más = more
mas = but
sólo = only
solo = alone
The accent can also change the meaning as well as the pronunciation.
Mando = I send
Mandó = he or she sent
So in Spanish, Gimenez and Giménez are two different names and are pronounced differently. To use one spelling when you mean the other would be a spelling error.
But how do you know whether it should or shouldn’t have one? If you’re addressing or referring to someone whose name is Gimenez without an accent, then it’s wrong to put it in. But if you’re addressing or referring to someone whose name is Giménez with an accent, then it’s wrong to leave it out.
As has been pointed out, the answer isn’t that simple or obvious. It makes a difference as to whether you treat the name as if it were an English name (in which case it would not have any accent, since English doesn’t use diacritical marks), or as a Spanish name (in which case it would take an accent on the first syllable based on its pronunciation). If Gimenez moved to Mexico, he might want to change the spelling of his name to take an accent, since otherwise it would not be pronounced correctly. (What he would do about the pronunciation of the “g” is anyone’s guess.)
I don’t agree that the question is whether it’s an English name or a Spanish name; the question is, what is this guy’s name? It’s either Gimenez or Giménez, but the correct answer is a matter of fact, not a matter for our choice. It’s possible that he has more than one name, of course; that he uses Gimenez in some contexts or occasions, and Giménez in others. But, assuming he only has the one name which he uses consistently then, whichever it is, that’s his name, and calling him by a different name would be a mistake. If he’s Giménez you and I don’t get to choose to “treat the name as if it were an English name”, any more than we get to choose to treat the given name of the current US President as Domhnall.
Well, I’m not familiar with the gent, but from what y’all have been saying, it sounds as if, if he were ever to move to a Spanish-speaking country and change spelling to match pronunciation, he’d be a Yímenez, or more accurately a Yímenes. You know, like Yerái, Yenifer, Yénifer, Yéni, Yasmín…
And as Colibri says, if the name is treated as an English one, then it gets no accent mark.
You may disagree, but you are wrong. We’re not talking about what his name is, but how it is spelled. (And Giménez would be incorrect in both English and Spanish based on how he pronounces it.) What would be the guy’s “correct” name if he moved to Russia? Would it be incorrect to transliterate it into Cyrillic? What about Arabic? Is the only correct way to spell the name how it’s spelled in English in the Latin alphabet? The issue is somewhat disguised in Spanish because the alphabet it uses is so similar to that used by English, although not exactly the same. And the spelling system is even more different (that is, if English can be said to have a system). But it’s basically the same issue. The name as pronounced is spelled Gimenez in English, but it would be Gímenez in Spanish.
I often tell people here in Panama my name is Jorge instead of George to avoid misunderstanding. And my name in the US is George Richard Fatherssurname, but here it’s George Richard Fathersname Mothersmaidenname. (When people see my name written as George Richard Fathersurname, they assume Richard is my surname.)
If he moved to Argentina and some other places in South America. At least here in Panama, “y” is not equivalent to the English “j” sound. I’m not sure what spelling you might use to convey to a Panamanian the way Gimenez pronounces his name.
It’s not equivalent in Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica or Puerto Rico, but it’s close enough that most of us can’t differentiate them*. We simply don’t have a way to represent the English J.
I never say “jail”, I say “prison”, because apparently my jail sounds like Yale to American ears. Saying “prison” may lead to someone in whose demarcation they’re not the same asking for clarification, but it’s never led to someone braying “HAHASHESAIDYALEHAHAHASHESOFUNNY!”
We’re not talking about what his name is, but how it is spelled. (And Giménez would be incorrect in both English and Spanish based on how he pronounces it.) What would be the guy’s “correct” name if he moved to Russia? Would it be incorrect to transliterate it into Cyrillic? What about Arabic? Is the only correct way to spell the name how it’s spelled in English in the Latin alphabet? The issue is somewhat disguised in Spanish because the alphabet it uses is so similar to that used by English, although not exactly the same. And the spelling system is even more different (that is, if English can be said to have a system). But it’s basically the same issue. The name as pronounced is spelled Gimenez in English, but it would be Gímenez in Spanish.