Quote:
Originally Posted by NewIreland
Never took many marketing classes in uni, but I recall something to the effect of, "when developing a brand . . . stick to something less than 8 syllables. So no, this isn't a "race" issue (like everything these days), just really shitty marketing.
|
Wehwehneh Bahgahkinahgohn is 8 syllables. That's one syllable less than Canada's Diversity Gardens, and three syllables less than Canadian Museum of Human Rights.
It's also just a tentative name for the project, according to the
government press release, so it may well not be the final branding.
In any case, I don't think it's bad marketing for an Indigenous project to have an Indigenous name whose pronunciation is a bit opaque to English speakers. It emphasizes what's different about the project.
If anyone wants to hear what the words sound like, here are links to the dictionary entries for the equivalent words in Southwestern Ojibwe (Minnesota). You can click the "Listen" button to hear them pronounced by an actual speaker:
weweni 'properly, correctly, carefully'
bagakinaagwad 'it is seen clearly, it looks bright'
(The spelling differences between
wehwehneh bahgahkinahgohn and
weweni bagakinaagwad are not significant, aside from "n" vs. "d" at the end, which is a North/South dialect thing. Otherwise the words are the same, just using different spelling systems.)
Threaded Mode