Pronunciation and stress

[Eric]

Pronunciation and stress (i.e. word emphasis, not nervous breakdowns) are interesting. There are obvious major differences between dialect and standard, Britain and the USA, and so on. But even within, say, Britain, and within the standard language, there are curious alternatives and hesitations.

For instance:

Longevity. Some say "long-GHEV-iti" (hard "g") others "lon-JEVV-i-ti". As we pronounce longer as "LONG-gh?" and longest as "LONG-ghist", why should we say "lon-JEVV-iti"?

Hegemony. This word seems to also get pronounced in principally three different ways: "h?-JEMM-?ni" ' h?-GHEMM-?ni, and "HEGG-?-m?-ni". Which is most accurate by analogy with other words, I wonder?

It's usually words with Latin roots that cause the problems. There is indeed a KONN-tr?-v??ssi about the pronunciation of k?n-TROH-v?ssi.

English is a puzzling language. Any more such words?

[jackdawdle]

Try saying sausage and egg Mcmuffin, I couldn't, launching the person taking the orders into fits of laughter.

A simple solution was to transpose the words and though I wasn't particularily keen on having an egg and sausage Mcmuffin the morning I ordered it I did so just to see if my solution was indeed a solution and it was by golly it was.

[jackdawdle]

Hegemony is a spondee, or its best pronounced as one.

Inventory has to be my favorite dactyl. I had initially pronounced this word w/o a stress which is horribly wrong and ridiculous sounding.

[Eric]

And what about that town, devastated in the earthquake in April 2009?

In a soundbite, you can clearly hear Berlusconi say: LAA-quee-la. (Meaning: the eagle.)

But George Alagiah and other BBC journos (though not all) insist on erroneous things like La-KEE-la and La-QUEE-la.

You might not like Berlusconi, but he is, at least, Italian.

Yes, the international community should be helping Italy, but pronunciation leads to comprehension and dignity for the poor people of this town, even though it won't bring back their houses.

[Galatea92]

And what about that town, devastated in the earthquake in April 2009?

In a soundbite, you can clearly hear Berlusconi say: LAA-quee-la. (Meaning: the eagle.)

But George Alagiah and other BBC journos (though not all) insist on erroneous things like La-KEE-la and La-QUEE-la.

You might not like Berlusconi, but he is, at least, Italian.

Yes, I noticed the mispronunciations too. Having kicked around L'Aquila in the past, waiting for cross-country buses, I was aware of the correct Italian pronunciation, so I was surprised so many of the BBC journalists got it wrong.

Usually the BBC are pretty hot on getting the procunciations right. Maybe in this case, seeming familiarity misled them. George Alagiah sounded as though he was pronouncing a French or Spanish place name - maybe he knows French or Spanish and just incorrectly extrapolated the pronunciation. In a less familiar language he might have gone to the prounciation researchers.

Having written this post, though, I must admit that I'm a bit ashamed of having spent my time focusing on the correspondent's pronunciation, when all around him the town was lying in ruins :o.

[Ramblingsid]

I dont usually get stressed over pronunciation as being an uneducated oik I mis-pronounce most words myself.

But there is a village near where I was brought up that people insist on pronouncing as "Bedding'em" but I know should be pronounced "BeddingHAM" and for some reason that drives me round the bend. Though there is another village nearby, "Folkington" that should be pronounced "Fooington" and I wonder how many second home owners there realise how they should be pronouncing it.

[Eric]

Let me be clear. When the news of the earthquake first broke, and I hadn't heard anyone speak about it, I too hadn't a clue about how the name was pronounced, beyond my rudimentary knowledge of Italian. But I do know about BREEN-dee-ssi, not brin-DEE-zi, so I wasn't surprised when I heard the correct pronunciation.

I kept my ears open, and when one or two CNN journos kept saying LAA-quee-la, and then Berlusconi did the same, I got the message.

Most Brits are frozen in stereotype pronunciations of foreign languages. I entirely agree with Galatea's perceptive phrase "incorrectly extrapolated". All you have to do is either learn a bit of Italian - and extrapolate correctly - or just open your ears and listen to what Italians say on the endless coverage of this tragedy.

Rambling Sid: it is not a question of being uneducated. You just have to listen and imitate. The local pronunciation of places often trips up "foreigners", people who come from elsewhere. I believe that Shrewsbury is pronounced "Shroozbry" by locals, while outsiders say "Shrohzbry". And as I've lived in Nawfuck, I've heard of Windum, Eel-eye, and a few other places in the surrounding counties. We say "Norritch", so why not "Issitch"? And there's Bisster, Woosster and Glosster. And Ashby-de-la-Zoosh. And what about Keighley in Yorkshire. Since when was "gh" a way of saying "th". But that's how they say it. And Pontefract, where the pumphrey cakes come from. And Barugh Green, pronounced Bark Green. I used to live in SOH-li-hull / SOLL-i-hull / soh-li-HULL / soll-i-HULL. Four ways of describing the same nouveau riche housing estate.

[SilverSeason]

American place names which come from languages other than English become something very strange this side of the Atlantic.

North of me here in Connecticut is a town named Berlin but for a long time I didn't know it was "Berlin" because they pronounce in BURlin.

Also, don't give DesMoines (Iowa) or Versailles (Indiana) the French pronunciation or no one will know what you are talking about. As a 10-year-old I spent a pleasant week at a girl scout camp in VerSALES.

And then there is LIME-a (Lima) in Ohio, not to speak of the manged names from American Indian languages, but I have no idea how the Indians said those words.

[hdw]

To say nothing of Launceston which is Launston in Cornwall but Launsseston in Tasmania.

Milngavie near Glasgow is pronounced Mill-guy, and pronouncing it as Miln-gehvie, with an exaggeratedly posh Glasgow Kelvinside accent, is looked on as the height of humour by some people (e.g. Scottish comedians).

My wife, who like me has lived in Sweden, has trouble pronouncing the Swedish sj- sound as in "sj?". I was always tell her just to say "sh??", and she'll sound just like a elderly matron from ?stermalm, the posh part of Stockholm, which corresponds roughly to Kelvinside in Glasgow and Morningside in Edinburgh.

Harry

[kpjayan]

American place names which come from languages other than English become something very strange .....

but I have no idea how the Indians said those words.

The real Indians :) , from Bangalore is busy traveling to San JOSE ;) .

Since we are on that subject , it is bengaLUru ( not bAngaLOre ) in the local language.

[SilverSeason]

The real Indians :) , from Bangalore is busy traveling to San JOSE ;) .



I know, I know. If Christopher Columbus has really known where he was when he named the native peoples we could have avoided a lot of later confusion. :confused: Some say Amerindians and some say Native Americans. Whatever you call them, they arrived here ahead of the rest of us, both European and Indian Indian.

[Eric]

So you see what subliminal markers place names can be. They can pick you out as a local or "foreigner"; they can be used to distinguish class.

I'm glad I learnt to speak Swedish among the not necessarily up-market Finland-Swedes. They also say what Harry writes as "sh??", not "khw??" which is what the rather idiosyncratic standard educated Sweden-Swedish version sounds like to the untrained ear. Nor do the Finland-Swedes have that sing-song accent that they used to laugh at on the Muppet Show (de Sveedish Kook - though that almost sounded more like a Norwegian).

[Eric]

Last night, listening to the desultory coverage they had on the BBC of the Booker, I learnt something. I had thought that the winneress was pronounced "mantle", as in cloak, or mantelpiece. I now know better:



I never could tell
How winner Mantel
Pronounced her own surname
The same with Powell
When rhyming with bowel
Of Coalin (not Anthony) fame.
For Entony Pole
Whose name rhymes with coal
Wrote lots of novelish books
While Vivian Fuchs
Was a man, and his looks
Made no difference to his role.
And then we have Durrell
Whose name rhymes with... Durrell
Although you would call him Dyoo-RELL,
All these funny names
Yet nobody blames
You; you never can tell.



Nothing like doggerel to make a point. (Fuchs is pronounced Fyooks, I think, it was fun while it lasted. And Durrell nearly rhymes with squirrel.)

[hdw]

I only knew her name was pronounced Man-TELL because I've heard her mentioned or introduced on the radio several times. The posh radio announcer of yesteryear called Alvar Liddell seems to have pronounced his name Li-DELL, although the same name in Scotland is always pronounced and sometimes written Liddle. However, I believe Alvar was half-Swedish, and if the Swedish half came from his father, that would explain it. Names like that are common in Sweden, and always stressed on the second syllable.

I've complained before ad nauseam, from my usual pedantic and intolerant perspective, about clapped-out Tory politician of yesteryear Lord Norman Lamont calling himself La-MONT, when every fule kno that the proper pronunciation is LAM-unt (with an unstressed schwa-vowel). Maybe he got carried away by his given name and decided he must have aristocratic French roots.

Harry

[Jayaprakash]

Surrounded by people who've just come back from San JOSE and who enjoy a stroll down Sen Mark's Road (St. Mark's Road), on the way to Lah Velly Road (Lavelle Road) questions of correctness are more or less moot in the face of the larger need to be understood.

I have a kneejerk aversion to what I see as Americanisms such as 'rowt' for 'route' and 'skedjul' for 'schedule'. But really, I'm probably mis-pronouncing things without even realising it, so it's a bit of a losing battle.

[Eric]

Yes, Harry, I've not listened to the wireless for a long time. And as British TV book programmes on the BBC are conspicuous by their absence, the pronunciation had not yet reached the land of clogs and spliffs where I live. Lid-ELL Bri-TAIN hasn't been on TV lately, either. So I think that my stab at pronouncing Herta M?ller would have been more accurate than my way of pronouncing the creator of Wolf Hall.

Larment: what a funny name. Does he call the clothes of the whips-and-black-boots establishment gals in the cellar of his residence "garments" as well? Or do they wear gar-MENTS? Or nothing at all, bar the boots? Is Larment related to Max Mosley by any chance? Striped bums all round! Talking of kinky sex, where was the stress of the surname of that little girl Lewis "Dodgy Dodgson" Carroll used to fancy? Does it indeed rhyme with "piddle"?

Jayaprakash, do you have a kneejerk reaction to the way that Saint John is pronounced in posh British surnames? And I actually heard an American say "route" (rooot, not rauwt) on TV a few weeks ago. So it can't be 100% consistent.

[Jayaprakash]

British ways with the pronunciation of proper nouns are beyond help, Eric. Your point about inconsistency re: route and so forth adds to the confusion of course. I can understand British people fairly well, face-to-face; the few times I have spoken to an American who has lived in the UK or vice-versa, the resulting melange is more or less incomprehensible to my ears.

[Eric]

The inconsistency of English pronunciation was dreamed up by the British defence establishment during the Cold War to trip up Cagey Bee infiltrators and other dastardly spies.

Once they'd adopted their perfect accents, such spies would learn all the old traditional stuff such as how you say Chumley-Cholmondeley, Featherstonehaugh-Fanshawe and Wooster Sauce, Glosster Cheese and so on. So the British needed more place- and surnames to foil the enemy. A committee was co-opted to invent weird and wonderful pronounciations for such names. Entony Pole sat on the committee, as did the lady novelist Evelyn Wogg, and members of the Pakenham family (whose name is pronounced, as only the upper classes know, as Packenham). One spy was indeed caught when uttering "Churchill". He was caught off guard; he had seen it written, but had never heard it said. So, thinking this chap to be a German, not English, he said "khoorkhill" and was immediately arrested.

The committee proceeded to contact towns such as Durrum, Windum, Lesster, Norridge, Guilford, Shroughsbury, Plimmuth, etc., and blurred the distinction between the pronunciations of -burgh (Eddinbruh), -borough (Peeterburruh), etc., in specific instances. All, to catch out the wicked subversives from the Sovviet Union (aka Rusher).

Nowadays India does the same thing by writing Bombay and saying Mumbai, writing Calcutta and saying Golgotha, and so on. The potential infiltrators are different, but the system adopted from former colonial power Blighty remains the invention of that great British committee.

[hdw]

Larment: what a funny name.


If you're a linguistic pedant or a pedantic linguist you can have an awful lot of fun, or a lot of awful fun, with the name Lamont and other names that have been through the Gaelic digestive system and then ejected at the other end.

Lamont is originally from Old Norse "l?gma?r" 'lawman', but the Gaels made it into the surname Mac Laomuinn 'son of the lawman', which in the non-Gaelic-speaking Lowlands has been rendered variously as McLeman, McClement(s) and McClymont, as well as the non-Mac forms Lamond, Lamont, and Clement(s). Take your pick.

Gaels with a penchant for the classics have tended to regard Angus as equivalent to Latin Aeneas, but the Gaelic original of the former name is written Aonghus and pronounced roughly Innes. The surname McInnes is an anglicisation of Gaelic Mac Aonghuis.

And just to finish with a bang, the Gaelic equivalent of Archibald is Gilleasbuig, giving the surname Gillespie, and the Gaelic for Sarah is M?r. No, I don't know why, ah'm jist a puir wee Lowlander (almost a Sassenach).

Harry

[Eric]

Are you trying to tell me, Harold, that Martin McGuinness is a descendent of Trojan refugee and Dido-deserter Aeneas the Father-Carrier? Do tell Romanophile Boris and he might give him a post in the London (sans Derry) government. Mac Laoimuinn looks to me, when you've sorted out all your slenders and broads, like a Gaelification of MacLawman...

Lowlander and almost (but not quite) a Sassenach?! Oh dear. I used to know someone who got pretty paranoid because he wasn't a proper Scot, having in London from his Scottish mother's womb been untimely ripped. How infradig.

Is one of the mutations of Sarah "B?r", as in crashing? Imagine someone called Archibald Gillespie. Wouldn't he be a bit of a tautalot?

[hdw]

Are you trying to tell me, Harold, that Martin McGuinness is a descendent of Trojan refugee and Dido-deserter Aeneas the Father-Carrier? Do tell Romanophile Boris and he might give him a post in the London (sans Derry) government. Mac Laoimuinn looks to me, when you've sorted out all your slenders and broads, like a Gaelification of MacLawman...


If you knew your Old Norse morphology as well as you know your Estoney-thingi, Erica, you would know that all the other cases of "ma?r" apart from the nominative have "-nn-", and it's from those inflected cases that loanwords are made. Same with English loanwords from Latin, which aren't usually from the nominative (dictionary headword) Latin form; e.g. words like "rational" and "national" don't come from Latin "ratio", "natio", they come from the inflected forms with "-ion-".

Don't even think of venturing into the Irish onomastic minefield. Tracing an Irish pedigree can be a nightmare. Many Irish people have Scottish surnames like Cunningham, Burns, Murray or Shields, but this doesn't always mean Scottish ancestors, it can be an anglicisation of an indigenous Irish name, e.g. ? Cuinnegain > Cunningham, ? Muireadhaigh > Murray. Even the person's religion is not a sure guide as there have been conversions both ways.

Harry

[Jayaprakash]

Nowadays India does the same thing by writing Bombay and saying Mumbai, writing Calcutta and saying Golgotha, and so on. The potential infiltrators are different, but the system adopted from former colonial power Blighty remains the invention of that great British committee.

Actually, it's the other way around these days. I was born in a city called Madras; today a city called Chennai occupies the same space. I moved to Bangalore in 1991; today I find myself unaccountably transported to a
city called Bengaluru.

I had an Anglo-Indian geography teacher who taught us all about Rusher and Aysher and Africker. A wonderful old gent in his 80s who rode half a km to school each day on a marvelous old velocipede in its 50s. You'd have liked him; his catchphrase was 'English is a peculiar language'. He also told great ghost stories and taught our boy scout troop to sing 'My ding-a-ling'.

[Eric]

I take Harry's point about the O'Bleek cases, as they're called in Anglofied Irish. It intrigues me that with many loan words into various languages, the oblique cases are the stem of borrowings, while the nominative stands all huffy and alone, doing an aloof sulk because it's slightly different. I suppose that "ma?n" would be maddeningly unsayable, so they ended up saying "mann" which is probably pronounced like "madden"', knowing those Icelanders.

I say, Jayaprakash, your velocipede-propelled gent was quite right: English is a peculiar language, rather a mish-mash. Don't they speak Qu?becois in Bangalore? Or was it Canada? Some people say "Aysher", some "Ayzher". I've never worked out who says what and why. Your geog teacher sounds to have been a right character, not least because of his ding-a-ling. I believe that the puritanical Mary Whitehouse, a would-be TV censor, took exception to that song, suspecting a double-entendre. Chennai is further away from Madras than the other two. Is there a language or ethnic reason for this?

[Jayaprakash]

The towns of Madraspettinam and Chennapatinam were merged in the 17th century. While the two names are equally old as far as one can tell, the British called the resultant city Madraspattinam, so the locals always referred to it as Chennapatinam amongst themselves. Perhaps it was a sort of gesture of defiance. Growing up I often heard my grandparents and others refer to the city as Chennai with others of their generation. The late nineties saw a flurry of re-naming activities in India, and it was decided to switch to the name with more nationalist history.

People speak Tamil in Madras, and indeed in Chennai. We also speak English after our own fashion. Some may even cough out some Malyalam. What we will never, ever speak is Hindi. Some French may still be spoken in Pondicherry.

[Eric]

What we will never, ever speak is Hindi.

I'm beginning to see why English, although a European import brought in by the colonialist masters, is still surely a safer bet for India as a lingua franca than, say, Hindi. It is neutral, in a way the several big, dominant, but essentially regional languages cannot be without upsetting someone. Whether you love the Brits or hate them, they are still essentially outsiders.

[Clarissa]

Whether you love the Brits or hate them, they are still essentially outsiders. A wee joke en passant. In the film Topkapi, which takes place in the heart of Istanbul, there is the following exchange:

You're foreign?

No, I'm English (answer given by Peter Ustinov in his inimitable manner)

:)

[hdw]

I have very vague memories of seeing a film called Hotel Sahara years ago, set in WWII, in which Ustinov kept changing identity and accent as the various occupying powers passed through. He was a marvellous raconteur, and worth watching in any TV chat show he was guesting in.

Harry

[Eric]

Yes Clarissa, one is English, isn't one? Even if one is not called Terry-Thomas (notice the hyphen; aka Thomas Terry Hoar-Stevens - get y'r mouth round that). He spoke English between his two front teeth, I mean both upper ones. Upper clawss, upper jaw. Though he started life as an 'umble clerk. And the Wiki enlightens us:


Terry-Thomas' dental diastema provides the basis for naming a widening of the scapholunate space ("Terry-Thomas sign") in a traumatic wrist injury.

All gobbledegook to me, but interesting.

Ustinov was another card.

[hdw]

I think I read once that Terry Thomas was a cousin of Richard Briers, or have I imagined that? I know that Margaret Rutherford was a relative of Tony Benn.

Harry

[hdw]

Professor Christopher Andrew's history of MI5 is being serialised on the radio just now. They once tried bugging Communist miners' leader Mick McGahey to see if he was working for the KGB, but were none the wiser because they couldn't understand his broad Scottish accent. That's what you get if you employ English public-schoolboys to save us from the red menace.

Similar story in the papers the other day about this Liverpool gangster and drug-dealer who has been arrested after a joint operation by the British and Dutch police. The Dutch were listening in to his phone calls and were sure he was setting up big drug deals but they couldn't understand a word of his Scouse dialect, so had to send to Liverpool for a copper to come out and interpret for them.

Do these problems arise in other languages too? We had friends in Germany (Lower Rhine) whose daughter started going out with a boyfriend from the Odenwald, and when he came on the phone, her dad used to shout to her to come and talk to him as he couldn't understand the poor guy.

Harry

[Clarissa]

Had the same experience in Bavaria a fortnight ago. A man there proudly told me he only spoke Bavarian. It took an almighty effort on my part to understand him - almost as bad as Schwyzerdutsch. I managed but was exhausted. Added to which, I had to translate from the English into German as he had no English either!


Just found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8308288.stm

[Jayaprakash]

I've come across several people who pronounce 'cough' as if it was not just spelled like but also pronounced like 'rough'. This sounds wrong to me. Has it any precedent, does anyone know?

[hdw]

I've come across several people who pronounce 'cough' as if it was not just spelled like but also pronounced like 'rough'. This sounds wrong to me. Has it any precedent, does anyone know?

There are all kinds of English accents but I've never heard anyone pronounce "cough" that way.

English spelling is wonderful. There's an old joke about writing the word 'fish' as "ghoti", with the gh from 'rough', the o from 'women' and the ti from, e.g., 'nation'.

Harry

[Jayaprakash]

Yes, that's what I thought. I was told that the 'ghoti' joke was originated by George Bernard Shaw, but a lot of witticisms tend to be ascribed to either him or Wilde on general principle.

[hdw]

Yes, that's what I thought. I was told that the 'ghoti' joke was originated by George Bernard Shaw, but a lot of witticisms tend to be ascribed to either him or Wilde on general principle.

It may well have been Shaw, as he was very keen on reforming the spelling of English, and liked pointing out its inconsistencies.

Every so often this question of reforming the spelling system resurfaces. I think it's a non-starter, because pronunciation is changing the whole time, and there are even differences in pronunciation between different age-groups. To say nothing of regional accents and dialects. As soon as you published your preferred spelling-system, it would already be out of date and would be guaranteed to enrage those sections of the population who don't speak that way.

For instance, if you took the pronunciation of most current BBC presenters as the norm, you would start spelling "food" as "feed", and words like "book" and "look" would be "behk" and "lehk". "To" these days is usually "teh". As a Scot I suppose I notice these things more. These particular pronunciations irritate the hell out of me, but I have to admit that a lot of Scottish accents aren't very "bonny" either.

Harry

[Eric]

Jayaprakash #32: maybe that's where the expression "off the cuff" comes from...

Shaw, shaw, I though a ghoti was a beard, not a fish. Damned smelly to have a two-week growth of unshaven fish on one's chin, what?

[Jayaprakash]

In any case, anyone pronouncing cough in that manner should be cuffed.

[hdw]

In any case, anyone pronouncing cough in that manner should be cuffed.

Or ruffed up.

Harry

[Jayaprakash]

Tuff breaks for them.

[Jayaprakash]

Attended a concert of Renaissance music last night, which the announcer informed us would be a program of coral music with ricardo accompaniment. It turned out to be a bunch of singers and someone playing a flute-like instrument.

[Eric]

Aren't Brits bloody useless at the pronunciation of foreign names?

Two Czech presidents in a row have had the same Christian name: V?clav. How many presidents will it take for thick British journos to listen to how the Czechs themselves say it? Perfection is not required, merely nearest acceptable pronunciation:

VAAT-slaff

Look at the Wikipedia which uses the international phonetic alphabet:


V?clav Klaus (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːtslaf ˈklaus];

But it amounts to the same. And the former president was V?clav Havel with a short "a" in his surname. Czech has a simple system to show whether an "a" is long or short: an accent over the letter. What could be simpler, except for simple journos?

Jon Sopel got it right on the BBC Politics Show. Good on him. But most of the rushed reporters couldn't care less.

[hdw]

Aren't Brits bloody useless at the pronunciation of foreign names?

Two Czech presidents in a row have had the same Christian name: V?clav. How many presidents will it take for thick British journos to listen to how the Czechs themselves say it? Perfection is not required, merely nearest acceptable pronunciation:

VAAT-slaff

Look at the Wikipedia which uses the international phonetic alphabet:

But it amounts to the same. And the former president was V?clav Havel with a short "a" in his surname. Czech has a simple system to show whether an "a" is long or short: an accent over the letter. What could be simpler, except for simple journos?

Jon Sopel got it right on the BBC Politics Show. Good on him. But most of the rushed reporters couldn't care less.

Yes, I've noticed that recently with V?clav. And to air the bee in my parochial bonnet for about the millionth time, I was impressed some years ago by BBC announcers' splendid attempts to render the name of Mr. Ghotbzadeh, who was Iranian foreign minister or something, complete with the difficult guttural, while at the same time they were pronouncing the Scottish names Inglis as Ing-gliss, Lamont as La-mont (yes, my favourite) and Gifford as Jifford. It was my bad luck that people with those names happened to be in the news at the time. I suppose you make more of an effort to find out how to pronounce words or names that are obviously difficult, whereas you don't with ones you think you know how to pronounce already. The BBC Pronunciation Unit only operates in an advisory capacity for staff, who have to approach them for help.

My wife comes from Peterborough, in the fenny East Midlands, and is unable to distinguish the long sound in Ely (Cambridgeshire) and the short e in Elie (in Fife, near St. Andrews). To a Scot, there is no comparison between the two e sounds. Today we went on a guided garden walk in an estate in central Fife, about an hour's drive from here, led by the head gardener, who had a pronounced English Midlands accent, and at one point he mentioned 'a lady who has come here today from Eeeely'. I genuinely thought he meant the one in Cambridgeshire, but my wife knew immediately that he meant the village a few miles east of where we were standing. "I was on his case right away!" she smirked later when I mentioned it.

Harry

[Eric]

The BBC will no doubt decide he's a German next, and pronounce his name farts laugh. Klaus? Klaus? Must be a Kraut.

When I used to travel from New Street Station, Birmingham on the seemingly endless journey to Norwich, during my student days, I distinctly remember one conductor on the train saying EEE-loy, as the train pulled in to that cathedral city.

[Eric]

There's a new kid on the block: Herman Van Rompuy.

I wonder why the Brits have reduced him to Rumpy, and yell that they've never heard of him. I'm sure the Belgians have never heard of Cathy Ashton.

Pronunciation without stress:

The man, a native-speaker of the Dutch language, has a rather French-looking name. But he himself will say:


fan ROMM-p??



Most Brits can't pronounce that, so fan ROMM-pow is the nearest for the UK, with the "-pow" pronounced like how, sow, cow, etc.


In Flemish Dutch, the "fan" can be "van", but the rest of his name is no rump. Where do these ignorant British TV journalists get their pronunciation from?


Another little piece of one-upmanship-through-knowledge on my part: while the Netherlands spells the "van" of Rompuy's name with a small "v", the Flemings use a capital one. And the ROMM-p?? can even become ROMM-p??y. Try that for size.


If this man is going to be visible in Europe for several years, we might as well get the pronunciation approximately right. Perfection is not necessary - but a gesture towards it is pleasant.

[hdw]

There's a new kid on the block: Herman Van Rompuy.

I wonder why the Brits have reduced him to Rumpy, and yell that they've never heard of him. I'm sure the Belgians have never heard of Cathy Ashton.


The Belgians aren't alone. I'VE never heard of Cathy Ashton.

By analogy with John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey, we could call the new guy Rumpy of Brussels.

Harry

[hdw]

There's a new kid on the block: Herman Van Rompuy.

I wonder why the Brits have reduced him to Rumpy, and yell that they've never heard of him. I'm sure the Belgians have never heard of Cathy Ashton.

Pronunciation without stress:

The man, a native-speaker of the Dutch language, has a rather French-looking name. But he himself will say:


fan ROMM-p??



Most Brits can't pronounce that, so fan ROMM-pow is the nearest for the UK, with the "-pow" pronounced like how, sow, cow, etc.


In Flemish Dutch, the "fan" can be "van", but the rest of his name is no rump. Where do these ignorant British TV journalists get their pronunciation from?


Another little piece of one-upmanship-through-knowledge on my part: while the Netherlands spells the "van" of Rompuy's name with a small "v", the Flemings use a capital one. And the ROMM-p?? can even become ROMM-p??y. Try that for size.


If this man is going to be visible in Europe for several years, we might as well get the pronunciation approximately right. Perfection is not necessary - but a gesture towards it is pleasant.

On BBC Radio Four's "Any Questions", which I caught a bit of today, and which typically came from a private girls' school in the Home Counties, the first question, posed by a female with a posh voice, was "Is it better to have a grey man from Belgium rather than a traffic-stopper from Britain for the top job in Europe?"

Do these people not realise how arrogant they sound? Stupid question, they wouldn't care if they did. I didn't hear the whole of the subsequent discussion as I had to answer the phone halfway through, but at one point David Dimbleby asked in that patronising voice of his, "Can anyone remember what his name is?" and there were various facetious attempts to pronounce van Rompuy.

Harry

[Clarissa]

And back to ignorant twits mocking 'Johnny foreigner'. As to traffic-stopping for Tony Blair, where has madam been in the last few years?

[Eric]

I too had never heard of Cathy Ashton before. I had heard of Van Rompuy, vaguely, in the context of Flemish and Belgian politics. But that is because I occasionally watch Flemish TV. If I only watched British TV programmes, I would be as surprised as Andrew Neil and Jeremy Paxman.

This whole EU election says something fundamental about the national and international media coverage of the politics of the European Union. There is something odd about the international media totally ignoring it, calling the EU a coven of secrecy and centralism like the Soviet Union, and then shrieking-wailing in anguish when a "nonentity" or two actually gets elected. If EU nationals and their reporters cared more, maybe we would have known more. Although, given the obsession with celebrities, we would have ended up with Tony Blair or another colourful actor as chairman or foreign minister of the club we all belong to.

Parliamentary democracy means we have to trust our representatives. If they prove to be crooks, we still have the mechanisms to throw them out, unlike in very many countries in the world.

How anyone in Britain dare use the term "unelected by the people", when Gordon Brown is exactly that, I do not know.

Anyway, Europe has now got a rightish Christian Democrat and a Baroness from the left. So let's see if they're any good, or Machiavellian career politicians.

[Clarissa]

Came across this while surfing.The readers' letters are as revealing of a mentality as the article itself...

Why haven't any of our would-be MPs got normal English names, asks Tory official Peter Hobbins | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1229637/Why-havent-MPs-got-normal-English-names-asks-Tory-official-Peter-Hobbins.html)

[Eric]

I saw that too somewhere, Clarissa. In every lucky-bag there is always a nut. Councillor "Hobbit" is not of this world. His real surname doesn't strike me as an average English one either. So maybe he should go and live on the Continent with the foreigners with funny names. The reports in the Mail and the Telegraph say that he was "suspended". Was this, by any chance, by his neck?

I also saw another piece of petty wind-up:

10 reasons to dislike the Belgians - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/6597046/10-reasons-to-dislike-the-Belgians.html)

It's been a good week for Brit-Continent spats and misunderstandings. I note that the main headline in the staid German daily Die Welt today was about "der gr??te Betrugsskandal, den es jemals gegeben hat" (the biggest scandal there has ever been) in world football. Uefa in the dock. But as no British teams are directly involved, the story hardly merited more than an obscure article in the British papers I saw online. This is match-fixing on a grand scale (some 200 games in 9 countries, with 300 officials involved). And we Brits, begad, invented the bloody game, but are indifferent when the crooks and swindlers ruin it for the rest of us.

We should a Continental-Bashing Watch thread somewhere. This one's about "pronounciation" as some people call it.

[Eric]

The other day, one of those quick-witted comedians on a TV quiz (like Mock the Week or Have I Got New For You) said "Gordon Brown rhymes with meltdown". I would disagree.

Leaving aside political banter and partisan point-scoring, I would say that "Gordon Brown" rhymes with "London Town", "Porton Down", "regal gown" or "abject clown" on account of the stress and rhythm.

[Eric]

The BBC was reporting some incident in a small hotel owned by someone they pronounced "VOGGER-lenzang". I thought: what a weird name. Then I saw in written: Vogelenzang, pronounced FOE-kher-lern-zang (birdsong, to you). When will Brits learn some approximation of names from the Netherlands or Belgium?

[hdw]

The BBC was reporting some incident in a small hotel owned by someone they pronounced "VOGGER-lenzang". I thought: what a weird name. Then I saw in written: Vogelenzang, pronounced FOE-kher-lern-zang (birdsong, to you). When will Brits learn some approximation of names from the Netherlands or Belgium?

Talking of which, there is some Dutch person associated with the climatic goings-on in Copenhagen whose name is De Boer, so of course BBC announcers have made this into De Beurre as in the French word for butter. They will do anything to avoid pronouncing the so-called Continental vowels. Everything gets diphthongised.

Harry

[Eric]

I know a de Boer myself. The Latvians, in their inimitable way of mangling names on paper and sticking esses on the end, turned him into Pauls de Būrs when he conducted a choir in Riga, but I think most non-Dutchies render his name normally. French butter is just silly in the context.

The problem for Brits is that German uses "oe" as the telegraph form of "?" (as the names of a couple of the Nazi leaders). Because Brits think that every European language is based on either German or French, they try to be clever and adopt the German solution in the de Boer case. When they think the language concerned has something to do with French instead, they start putting the stress on the last syllable, making words sound like Volap?k.

[Loki]

And what about that town, devastated in the earthquake in April 2009?

In a soundbite, you can clearly hear Berlusconi say: LAA-quee-la. (Meaning: the eagle.)

But George Alagiah and other BBC journos (though not all) insist on erroneous things like La-KEE-la and La-QUEE-la.

You might not like Berlusconi, but he is, at least, Italian.


They should know that Italian is a language pronounced (more or less) how it's written. If there's a u why they do not pronounce it? I don't say that everyone should know this, but if a were a journalist I would like to know how a word is pronounced in that language, before putting my foot in it.

That said, in Italy (at least) there's this stereotype that British people are not keen on learning new languages, probably for some journalists that's true!:D


I'm studying some phonetics and intonation (Standard British English), and I must admit that's fascinating!

[Bjorn]

How To Correctly Pronounce Authors' Names [PIC] (http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/how-to-correctly-pronounce-authors-names)

Confirming what I found out yesterday: that I've been mispronouncing Jonathan Lethem for years.

[lenz]

How To Correctly Pronounce Authors' Names [PIC] (http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/how-to-correctly-pronounce-authors-names)

Confirming what I found out yesterday: that I've been mispronouncing Jonathan Lethem for years.

Yes, that certainly looks like a trustworthy site, Buh- jorn. :rolleyes:

[Bjorn]

Yes, that certainly looks like a trustworthy site, Buh- jorn. :rolleyes:
Whatever the address is, they seem mostly correct to me, len-suh. :p

[Eric]

I was just having a look at the Latvian press. The Latvian language tries to write foreign names sort-of phonetically, so that Latvians can make a stab at pronouncing awkward foreign names.

So they they wrote Eijafjadlajegidls for the name of the notorious volcano. It may not be perfect, but it does make an attempt to tackle the problem Harry has mentioned about the "ll" in Icelandic sounding like "tl". (The "s" on the end is a standard for masculine nouns in Latvian.)

But even with such help, I bet the Latvians struggle with that Icelandic name.

[hdw]

I was just having a look at the Latvian press. The Latvian language tries to write foreign names sort-of phonetically, so that Latvians can make a stab at pronouncing awkward foreign names.

So they they wrote Eijafjadlajegidls for the name of the notorious volcano. It may not be perfect, but it does make an attempt to tackle the problem Harry has mentioned about the "ll" in Icelandic sounding like "tl". (The "s" on the end is a standard for masculine nouns in Latvian.)

But even with such help, I bet the Latvians struggle with that Icelandic name.

Yes, and they ruthlessly Letticise (I just made that up) foreign names, as witness all the Latvian-based Russians whose names have been sibillated (I made that up too) to, e.g., Vladimirs Putins. If I moved there I suppose I would become Harrys Watsons. You're halfway there already with your Dickens, and would only have to let them pluralise your first name to Erics.

If it was Lithuania, we would gain another syllable again.

Harry

[Eric]

The Letts must be rathers dafts. Do they they really want two Putins, similar to that Monty Python expedition to the two peaks of Kilimanjaro?

I have indeed seen my name written as Eriks Dikenss - with those lovely two esses. I think you would end up as Harijs Vatsons. They never quite get the phonetics right.

I have even mentioned this essitude and mangling of names to people in Latvia itself. One of their most distinguished poets, Knuts Skujenieks, himself essified for life, told me that he had seen signs of the Lithuanians relenting, but that he wished the Latvians would follow suit. That was ten or more years ago - and nothings has happeneds.

The Hungarians don't backwardise the names of foreigners (e.g. Dimbleby David), nor do the Icelanders insist on calling foreigners and Danish-derived Icelanders with patronymics and Christian names (e.g. David Richardson). But the Latvians and Lithuanians follow their own traditions and go it alone (Devids Dimblebijs and Davidas Dimblebycevicius, no doubt...).

[hdw]

I have indeed seen my name written as Eriks Dikenss - with those lovely two esses. I think you would end up as Harijs Vatsons. They never quite get the phonetics right.


The landlord of one of the flats I stayed in in Sweden put my name up in plastic on the front door as Vatson. I don't think the letter W was available to him.

The president of Iceland, or maybe it was the prime minister, seems to be a bit of a joker. He was quoted the other day as saying 'Gordon Brown asked us for cash, but there is no c in the Icelandic language, so we gave him ash'.

Talking of ash, a new cloud thereof is heading for Britain, so flights have been cancelled yet again. However, one scheduled flight is due to leave from Glasgow Airport today. For Reykjav?k.

Harry

[Eric]

In Swedish alphabetical order, such as library shelves, the "v" and the "w" are regarded as the same letter, the "w" being an older version, often occurring in established surnames (Wallenberg, Wallander, Wir?n, Wil?n, Cajsa Warg, etc.). As you can see from that last name, a "c" is sometimes substituted for a "k" in names. But the "c" is never mixed in with the "k". Such are the illogicalities of alphabetical order, a system which is, in itself, a totally random system based on convention.

I saw a pun in the Times today: "Royal Navy rescue plan all at sea".

[Loki]

I've just re-checked for the tenth time the pronunciation of lieutenant. I first looked it up on an online dictionary, and it said /lef'tenənt/, and I said to myself: ok, there's a mistake, it can't be (although I should know by now that in English everything's possible...). But also in my OALD it was the same.
The question is: although there are some bizzarre pronunciations, how is it possible that a consonant sound /f/ has been added? Of course the American say /lu:'tenənt/, which makes it even more difficult.

[mesnalty]

I've just re-checked for the tenth time the pronunciation of lieutenant. I first looked it up on an online dictionary, and it said /lef'tenənt/, and I said to myself: ok, there's a mistake, it can't be (although I should know by now that in English everything's possible...). But also in my OALD it was the same.
The question is: although there are some bizzarre pronunciations, how is it possible that a consonant sound /f/ has been added? Of course the American say /lu:'tenənt/, which makes it even more difficult.

Apparently nobody is really sure. The OED says this:


The origin of the btype (i.e. leftenant etc - Ed,) of forms
(which survives in the usual British pronunciation, though the spelling
represents the atype (i.e. Lieutenant - Ed.)) is difficult to explain. The
hypothesis of a mere misinterpretation of the graphic form (u read as v), at
first sight plausible, does not accord with the facts. In view of the rare
OF. form luef for lieu (with which cf. esp. the 15th c. Sc. forms luf-,
lufftenand above) it seems likely that the labial glide at the end of OF.
lieu as the first element of a compound was sometimes apprehended by
Englishmen as a v or f. Possibly some of the forms may be due to association
with leave n.1 or lief a.

There are plenty of citations from Middle English which spell the word with an F, so the pronunciation is at least that old.

[Eric]

Just to avoid a long abstruse discussion, lieutenant is pronounced "leff tenant" in Britain and "loo tenant" in the United States. In Britain the term "loo tenant" means someone who lives in a lavatory.

So let's not get too intellectual or vacillatory.

[Loki]

Just to avoid a long abstruse discussion, lieutenant is pronounced "leff tenant" in Britain and "loo tenant" in the United States.

And what did I write? And I think everyone already knew it, I just asked why it is so.

[Eric]

Loki, I have not consulted an etymological dictionary, but I have a theory:

There are many different ways that French is pronounced regionally. Proof of this is the fact that the Swedes turn all French borrowings into -ang where the original is nasal (-ant, ent, etc.) This is not just careless Swedish borrowing. In the south of France the nasal sounds are much closer to -ang.

I think that when the word "lieutenant" was borrowed into English, the Britons and Americans probably heard their words from soldiers from different parts of France, Louisiana, Canada, Belgium, or wherever.

I think that will prove to be the answer.

[Loki]

I've now done a little bit of research, which has led me to... nothing actually. There are only hypothesis, of which I remember these:
-the British pronounce the /f/ to annoy the French (!);
-the word comes from French, and the word "lieu" comes from Old French "leuf", which would make more sense.

Still, you British are complicated!

[hdw]

I've now done a little bit of research, which has led me to... nothing actually. There are only hypothesis, of which I remember these:
-the British pronounce the /f/ to annoy the French (!);
-the word comes from French, and the word "lieu" comes from Old French "leuf", which would make more sense.

Still, you British are complicated!

Forms with leef, leve etc. appear in the 14th century, so the English pronunciation obviously derives from them.

While we're dissecting military terms, check out "sergeant", written -er- but pronounced -ar-, and "colonel", written -ol- but pronounced -ur-!

Harry

[Eric]

Harry notes that our British military terms are pronounced with a degree of eccentricity. And Loki says that we British are complicated.

The reason that we pronounce many things oddly in British English is a top-secret ploy to prevent secret agents from enemy countries from infiltrating the armed forces. So you can pick out the KGB agent immediately when he starts on about lyoot'nants, surgents, c?-LONE-als and uses other tripwire words wrongly. He will then be consigned to gaol which he will pronounce wrong (probably like "ghoul"), or to a dungeon where he will keep shouting. "Let me out of this blithering, bally, unspiffing DUNG-ee-onn" in imitation of the erroneous upper class British speech which was taught at KGB Spy School.

By the way, the KGB is still a fully operative secret police force - but not in Russia. General knowledge question: where do they still have a KGB? (No, DWM, not in Darkest Sweden!). The clue is in evidence.

[Loki]

While we're dissecting military terms, check out "sergeant", written -er- but pronounced -ar-, and "colonel", written -ol- but pronounced -ur-!
Harry

Whoever caused this pronunciation must have been really bored at the time! I didn't know the former, but I fortunately knew the latter.
By the way, from now on I can talk with somebody about The French Lieutenant's Woman, without pronouncing it wrongly.

When I said that you British are complicated I didn't mean any offence of course, but you can't say that pronouncing British English words correctly is easy. As a matter of fact the first thing you learn, after "What's your name?" is "How do you spell it?".

In Italian we are less complicated, they generally say about the Italian language that "si legge come si scrive" (it's read as it's written), but that does not mean there are no difficulties. For instance, there are some sounds that the English, generally, cannot pronounce at first, like "gn" (palatal nasal) in "gnocchi".

[hdw]

Whoever caused this pronunciation must have been really bored at the time! I didn't know the former, but I fortunately knew the latter.
By the way, from now on I can talk with somebody about The French Lieutenant's Woman, without pronouncing it wrongly.

When I said that you British are complicated I didn't mean any offence of course, but you can't say that pronouncing British English words correctly is easy. As a matter of fact the first thing you learn, after "What's your name?" is "How do you spell it?".

In Italian we are less complicated, they generally say about the Italian language that "si legge come si scrive" (it's read as it's written), but that does not mean there are no difficulties. For instance, there are some sounds that the English, generally, cannot pronounce at first, like "gn" (palatal nasal) in "gnocchi".

What a lot of us Brits find difficult about Italian is deciding where the stress falls. There's a tendency to assume that every Italian word is stressed on the second last syllable, so people will say L'aQUILa, StefAno, CesAre, etc.

Even in fairly standard English, there are variations in what people say, and that's before we consider dialects. A lot of English people confuse "lay" and "lie", and will say, e.g. "I was laying there ..", making them sound like hens laying an egg. In the north of England you will hear people say "I was stood there ..." meaning "I was standing there ...". I've posted before about the changes I've observed in middle-class standard English pronunciation recently, just going by announcers and commentators and people interviewed on radio and TV. In book programmes, the thing itself is now usually referred to as a "behk", otherwise, the -oo- sound seems to have become -ee- (listen in particular to the female weather-forecasters on the BBC), as in "afterneen", and the preposition "to" is now regularly "tuh".

As a Scotland-based Scot speaking fairly standard Scottish English, I probably notice these things more than most English people do. I won't get started on the issue of Scottish English and broad Scots dialect, but I often wonder how foreign visitors to Scotland cope with the language they meet. Here in Edinburgh, we know that the summer has begun when hordes of Italian teenagers invade the city again, to study English in our language schools. They go about in huge groups of fifty or so, take over whole buses and chatter away in Italian to each other the whole time, so I don't know how much English they learn. But when they stop a local person in the street to ask them something, or go into a shop, they must think, 'is that really English that person is speaking?' Fast Edinburgh working-class vernacular can be difficult for me sometimes, and I only come from Fife, just the other side of the Forth.

And, of course, I know that Italian is very dialectal too.

Harry

[Clarissa]

According to many French people I know, who have visited both Scotland and England, the Scots accent is easier for them to understand than the English.
Must be the 'rrrs':)

[Loki]

What a lot of us Brits find difficult about Italian is deciding where the stress falls. There's a tendency to assume that every Italian word is stressed on the second last syllable, so people will say L'aQUILa, StefAno, CesAre, etc.

Really? I didn't know that, and I don't know if there's a tendency towards the second sillable. It's more interesting (and maybe annoying) when there are different words that have the same letters and it's only the stress that changes: "ancOra" (again, still, yet) and "Ancora" (anchor).


In book programmes, the thing itself is now usually referred to as a "behk", otherwise, the -oo- sound seems to have become -ee- (listen in particular to the female weather-forecasters on the BBC), as in "afterneen", and the preposition "to" is now regularly "tuh".

Very interesting. But is that considered standard English?


They go about in huge groups of fifty or so, take over whole buses and chatter away in Italian to each other the whole time, so I don't know how much English they learn.

They don't learn in that way. They should go and stay with a family, so that they're forced to speak English.


And, of course, I know that Italian is very dialectal too.

It is indeed! The most difficult ones are those of the south of Italy (Naples, Sicily...): I can't understand everything they say when I hear them on the news for instance.

[hdw]

Really? I didn't know that, and I don't know if there's a tendency towards the second sillable. It's more interesting (and maybe annoying) when there are different words that have the same letters and it's only the stress that changes: "ancOra" (again, still, yet) and "Ancora" (anchor).



Very interesting. But is that considered standard English?



They don't learn in that way. They should go and stay with a family, so that they're forced to speak English.



It is indeed! The most difficult ones are those of the south of Italy (Naples, Sicily...): I can't understand everything they say when I hear them on the news for instance.

Re pronunciation changes, if that's how people are now beginning to speak, then that's the Standard English of the future in the making. Pronunciation is never static. British people find it hilarious to listen to old recordings of politicians etc. in the 1920s and -30s. Their pronunciation sounds so old-fashioned. Or actors in old films, e.g. Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, sounding terribly terribly posh. The Royal Family still speak that way, and comedians are always mimicking the queen's pronunciation.

Is it the same in Italian? If you hear a recording of somebody speaking in the 20s or 30s, does it make you smile?

The thriller writer Donna Leon sets her novels in Venice, and she often tells us that her characters are speaking Veneziano, which she portrays as being a different language from Italian. The interesting thing to me is that even educated middle-class characters speak this dialect in her books. In Britain, by and large strong dialect is only spoken by people with not much education who have never left their home area.

Harry

[Loki]

Re pronunciation changes, if that's how people are now beginning to speak, then that's the Standard English of the future in the making. Pronunciation is never static. British people find it hilarious to listen to old recordings of politicians etc. in the 1920s and -30s. Their pronunciation sounds so old-fashioned. Or actors in old films, e.g. Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, sounding terribly terribly posh. The Royal Family still speak that way, and comedians are always mimicking the queen's pronunciation.

Received pronunciation, isn't it? It sounds very "standard", and it's something very similar to what I can hear on the BBC World News channel.
I know that pronunciation changes (which makes a language more annoying but also more exciting to learn) but it can't be said, I think, that those are standard ways of pronunciation. They must be officialised, otherwise it is sort of confusing: you look up a word in the dictionary and you learn how to pronounce it, and the next minute you turn on the TV and you hear the word pronounced in a different way.


Is it the same in Italian? If you hear a recording of somebody speaking in the 20s or 30s, does it make you smile?

I'm not really familiar with 20s or 30s recordings in Italian. The only person, I think, I've heard speaking from the 30s is Mussolini. he had a certain way of speaking, a certain rhythm, yet his pronunciation is not dissimilar from ours nowadays. You can find his speeches on youtube if you could make a comparison.


The thriller writer Donna Leon sets her novels in Venice, and she often tells us that her characters are speaking Veneziano, which she portrays as being a different language from Italian. The interesting thing to me is that even educated middle-class characters speak this dialect in her books. In Britain, by and large strong dialect is only spoken by people with not much education who have never left their home area.

Harry

Well, it is sort of a different language, but I can still make out something, there are worse dialects, so that it's a bit exaggerating maybe.
And it's strange that middle-class characters speak strong dialect; maybe they just have a strong accent, which is a lot different.

[Eric]

Harry brings up a point: ignorant clich?. I didn't know you said L'Aquila with first syllable stress either, till I heard reportage on the earthquake. It's true that most British people, as they have never really tackled foreign languages, will think of Italian as the next best thing to Esperanto with penultimate syllable stress.

There is an awful lot of "rat in the pizza" type urban myth about actually understanding another language. That thing with the "r"s is one such myth, no doubt.

As for "afterneen", I've heard that nauseatingly insincere "And how are y???" with the stress on the last word. This is like when the Royal Family say "hice" instead of "house".

Ah yes, you mean Trevor Haaad!

Even the best actors can't always pronounce other people's dialects. I remember seeing the very good Cockney actor Bob Hoskins
http://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:_6irKM3dUJDIzM::i.imdb.com/Photos/Events/4069/BobHoskins_Vespa_7056960_400.jpg&h=78&w=52&usg=__Q6f0XrWmcUYP_zTUIFSQL-SeRlU= (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Events/4069/BobHoskins_Vespa_7056960_400.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.germancarforum.com/a8-s8/11265-actor-bob-hoskins-sells-his-1999-audi-s8.html&h=400&w=267&sz=24&tbnid=_6irKM3dUJDIzM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=83&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBob%2BHoskins&zoom=1&q=Bob+Hoskins&hl=sv&usg=__Q-M4BBvPb2XfOMaZqRN-Mstp3nA=&sa=X&ei=M8mCTJzUAoGCOPKy3dUO&ved=0CDwQ9QEwCw)
in the film "Last Orders". There he plays in his native London accent. But he was once cast in a film about a serial killer set in Birmingham. I once lived near there so I know what the real thing sounds like. And Hoskins was forcing the accent all the way through the film.

Whereas when the actor Wilfred Brambell
http://www.google.com/images?q=tbn:cT4ETzo_fRszVM::i2.fc-img.com/CTV02/Comcast_CIM_Prod_Fancast_Image/94/239/1179503399046_2Wilfrid-Brambell_cc.jpg_147_106.jpg&h=70&w=97&usg=__rrvamlgd_N0V9tUkHk9Mlu519bc= (http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i2.fc-img.com/CTV02/Comcast_CIM_Prod_Fancast_Image/94/239/1179503399046_2Wilfrid-Brambell_cc.jpg_147_106.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fancast.com/people/Wilfrid-Brambell/11548/full-length-videos&h=106&w=147&sz=8&tbnid=cT4ETzo_fRszVM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3DWilfred%2BBrambell&zoom=1&q=Wilfred+Brambell&hl=sv&usg=__H8JHo-l7-sX-XTF9UR8G71RKUys=&sa=X&ei=7siCTIUUy5k4zNHlzAc&ved=0CDAQ9QEwBg)
played the father in "Steptoe and Son" you would have though his accent was real. But when interviewed, he would speak rather posh, cut-glass English, as it is called.

Finally, many British people say "pronounciation". Why that isn't the proper word is a quirk of history.

[Stiffelio]

....I've observed in middle-class standard English pronunciation recently, just going by announcers and commentators and people interviewed on radio and TV. In book programmes, the thing itself is now usually referred to as a "behk", otherwise, the -oo- sound seems to have become -ee- (listen in particular to the female weather-forecasters on the BBC), as in "afterneen", and the preposition "to" is now regularly "tuh".

Oh yes.....but that's nothing compared to the atrocious pronunciation of Australian broadcasters on CNN (yes, they appear to have invaded the US TV spectrum!). You have to guess what vowels they are attempting to pronounce.

[Loki]

Finally, many British people say "pronounciation". Why that isn't the proper word is a quirk of history.

You mean why is the noun "pronunciation" and the verb "to pronounce"?


Here in Italy we don't seem to have any of these problems: news presenters speak in a clear Italian, without any sort of accent. The same goes for politicians, although you can hear a slight accent in some of them (like Fini, President of the Chamber of Deputies, who comes from Bologna, and you can hear it).

[Eric]

Yes, Loki, I just think it bloody silly that we say "pronunciation" but "pronounce". But as an educated Brit, I stick to the rules. If you say "pronounciation" many people will think that you are a bit of a bumpkin.

Loki brings up the point about speaking the standard language with some accent, or actually speaking dialect. The latter would make national newsreading chaotic and incomprehensible to many in Britain, as we have a number of very strong dialects that are incomprehensible to outsiders.

Indeed, on Flemish TV, they use subtitles when people are interviewed sometimes. In Flanders they theoretically all speak and write Dutch, but some dialects are extremely strong. If Flemish newsreaders were to adopt their local dialect, maybe three or four villages would understand them.

And when if you are used to a kind of Stockholm Standard Swedish, the Swedish they speak in Scania (aka Sk?ne) in the very south can come as quite a shock. The southern "r" is in the throat (as, roughly, in Danish) and many vowels are extremely dipthongised. But as long as they stick to standard vocabulary, you can understand sk?ningar, as they are terned.

So while I'm all for preserving and fostering dialects and regional versions of a language, I do feel that nationally it is very handy to have a neutral standard language, as Loki says they have in Italy.

[miercuri]

The question is whether there is such a thing as an accentless, standard language. I tend to believe that standard pronunciation is merely a privileged dialect, a dialect which has acquired prestige throughout the ages, under the influence of political, historical and social factors.
I've lived in Bucharest all my life (not that I am very old) and for a long time was not aware of how diverse accents are in Romanian, and how differently the southern Romanian accent is perceived by people from other parts of the country. Most Bucharesters tend to ridicule Romanian spoken with a Moldovian accent, which is heavily influenced by Russian. Most southerners perceive it as substandard and hold it in lower regards than other regional accents.
I've come to realize that southerners tend to be very quick to judge when it comes to accents. Most of them live under the impression that they speak a pure, unaltered version of Romanian, as opposed to Moldovians (heavier palatal sounds, clear Russian/Ukrainian influence) and Transylvanians (different stress placement, different vowel lengths, clear Hungarian influence). Yet very few people realize that the southern part of Romania (historically known as Wallachia) was more of a melting pot than any other region of Romania. We have been heavily exposed to Turkish and Greek in the past. And more recently, in the late 19th century and early 20th century, a class of Francophilic intellectuals started working on the first dictionaries and their spirit still haunts the Romanian Academy to this day. Standard Romanian is hardly 'pristine'.

I am not questioning the point of standard grammar and standard pronunciation, but I just wish more people would acknowledge the way standards came to be imposed and stopped idealizing them.

[Clarissa]

When I first moved to France, I could not, for the life of me, understand people who spoke with the accent of the Midi (southern France). This went from films with Fernandel to politicians like Gaston Deferre. However, I did notice that unlike the UK, people could speak strongly accented French without it being a social handicap. The 'received pronunciation' in the UK is more of a social indicator than anything else.
Many send their kids to Public Schools (in the British sense - not public at all!) so that they can learn how to 'speak proper' and 'eat proper'. Those new millionaires that can afford it, that is. As well as those who belong to the caste who have sent their boys to Eton, Harrow etc. for generations. However, I had a friend who was educated in one of these schools who told me that the most useful thing he got out of his education was his address book! That and impeccable manners. He also added that when he left school, he had to learn what every working class boy knew from the start - you need elbows, energy and hard graft to get on in life. This did not stop him sending his two boys to Harrow...
In France, I heard a Franco-British couple discussing the education their kids should have. He was for private, she for public (in the French sense, ?cole d'?tat). Her final argument was that in France you only send a child to a private school if it has problems. Or if you want a religious education of some kind as state and religion are totally separate in France. Accent does not come into it at all.
In the UK, it would appear that today the only way to get a decent education is to go private, grammar shools now being a thing of the past.Private at great cost but speaking 'received pronunciation' when you get out. Snob value, caste systm that is slowly disappearing. Listening to the BBC the other day, I noticed how many regional accents were coming over the airwaves. The one that struck me most was Janet Street Porter and she has been around for some time. Her 'cor blimey' accent was a far cry from the Queen's speech. And I don't know if anyone else has noticed, even the Queen is less clipped than on old recordings!

[Loki]

Indeed, on Flemish TV, they use subtitles when people are interviewed sometimes.


That wouldn't be a bad idea if it was to be applied here. If they interview someone from, say, Naples, sometimes you just get the jist of what the person says. We make fun of the people living in the South of Italy, but their talk is really incomprehensible at times!


Speaking of dialects, people have asked that some dialects in Italy (namely: Sardinian and another one in the North-East of Italy) be recognised as languages different from Italian, as people claim they were spoken before Italian was spoken. However, it has never been granted the status of language to these dialects. The issue of dialects could be discussed in a new thread.

[Clarissa]

They say that British films have to have subtitles in the US!

[lenz]

They say that British films have to have subtitles in the US!

True. Especially when it's Scottish (Trainspotting) or very gangsterish cockney. Of course aristocratic English can be unintelligible, too - muttered or clipped to death.

[hdw]

They say that British films have to have subtitles in the US!

Yes, and Americans won't make the effort to understand different British accents. When they made a film about the Beatles, the lads themselves were incensed when the actors portraying them talked about "ciggies" instead of "fags". And the image of effete English toffs in bowler hats drinking tea and saying "Toodle-pip old boy" dies hard.

Harry

[Eric]

I've just been reading a Wodehouse, and even he must have exaggerated a great deal the way the upper classes of Britain speak.

Miercuri's point about Romanian shows that the same variety of accents exists in (almost?) every country. But the accent of the capital, after it has been established for a century or two, does often become the norm.

In Britain it would seem that regional accents are regarded more as charming and ethnic nowadays, whereas about half a century ago, there was still a drive towards conformity. But even then, people, while using standard grammar, would differ quite a bit in accent.

Obviously, in Romania, Frenchified vocabulary would have the snob value that Turkish or Greek vocabulary would not have had, given the fact that the words "France" and "culture" were virtually synonymous internationally for at least a couple of centuries.

I rather like the southern French accent, influenced, no doubt by Proven?al, which is not so far from Catalan.

I'm glad grammar schools still existed when I was a teenager. Then there was an urge to make the kid speak proper (I had a strong Yorkshire accent when first attending the school I went to!), but that you didn't have to be a millionaire to send your child to a school where they selected the academically better children and prevent them from being dragged down by those who didn't want to, or couldn't, understand the lessons.

There must be an element of hierarchy and discipline in schools, otherwise you end up with a dreadful kind of lowest common denominator levelling. As it is impossible to drag everyone up to the higher level, schools should nevertheless not prevent the bright ones from reaching out and achieving, because of a kind of phoney class envy. Opportunity for everyone is the ideal. But if your kid is too thick, hard luck. (Unless you're rich, then Johnny Two-Short-Planks can be paid for.)

Oi wouldn't use Janet Street-Paw'ah (what a daft name, sounds like "streetwalker") as a norm for anything beyond opinionated commentary on everything vat floats froo 'er brine. A laad maaf is how I would describe her. Give me the clipped Cockney of the Queen, any day. Cockney and the Queen's English have a number of similarities. Because as Miercuri says, there are privileged dialects.

As for smoking fags, please let's repeat the old joke about roasting gays on a spit, ad nauseam. It does pall, but is still a bit funny, what?

[Loki]

I've just heard my English teacher (she's British), pronouncing "trek" as /trik/, which I found rather strange. Now, I know that it exists, I trust her, if she has pronounced /trik/ and not /trek/ there is probably some dialect in which you say "trek" in that way.

Now, does anybody happen to know where in Britain, or in any English speaking country, they say /trik/?

[Loki]

Reading a Spanish text, I realised how easy it is in Spanish to know where the stress falls. To say it briefly: Spanish words ending in vowel, "n" or "s", are pronounced with the accent falling on the penultimate syllable (caballo, joven, chicos...); words ending in other letters have the stress on the last syllable (comer, virtud...); otherwise, the accent is signalled (médico, ojalà..).
Once you learn this, it is easy. But in other language it's not so easy. In English, Italian, Russian (for aught I know) you have no point of reference. In my Russian textbook accents are signalled, but just because we're newbies. In Italian things get tricky, because the accents are not signalled graphically, unless the accent is on the last syllable (città, Perù, casinò...), or unless you can confuse two words (but not everyone signals the accent): saying "ancora" or "ancora" is not the same thing ("anchor" and "still, yet"); the same with "subito" and "subito" ("immediately" and "suffered") and with my favourite example: "capitano", "capitano" and "capitano" ("[they] happen", "captain" and "he/she headed, captained"). In all other cases accents are never written, so how is one supposed to know how to pronounce the words in the correct way?
So while in Spanish it's easy to get the pronounciation right, at least knowing where the stress falls, in other languages it is rather confusing and complicated.

[Eric]

Yes, Loki, I too have noticed how in Spanish it is easier to identify the stressed syllable from the written text than in Italian.

Russian Easy Readers (easy books of literature for beginners) mark all the stresses throughout, to help people get used to them. It is certainly not easy to predict the stress of a word, even if you know, say, the nominative and genitive. In Russian grammar books, you can find whole tables of nouns showing where the stress falls.

As English is my mother tongue, I'm not so sensitive to stress problems there. But I do know that there is a cóntroversy as to where the word contróversy should be stressed.

[Loki]

Speaking of controversies (whatever the right pronunciation be), I've since long noted the different variants regarding the pronounciation of words like director (pronounced either dai or di), but I'm not sure whether it is a BrE/AmE difference or another kind od difference.

The great thing about Russian is that they normally don't even signal the ё, which would help you since it's always accented. The only thing they can't omit in writing is the й (short i, basically a semiconsonant or semivowel), but that doesn't really help you with the pronounciation.

[Eric]

I'm not sure either (pronounced ayther or eether) where director is pronounced in the different ways. I've always said director with an "ay" (rhymes with fly, thigh, die, pie). But that is not necessarily British or American.

We talk about a "Potemkin" facade in English, but it's really pronounced "patyomkin". As for the й, it is problematical to transliterate into the various European systems. Because the y and i are already "booked", as is the j in some languages. So we write Tolstoy but Bely, quite illogically, really.

[Clarissa]

Another one - dilemma: dailemma vs Di(short i or e - take your pick). But pronunciation evolves as does language - RP has changed considerably in the last fifty years. Just listen to the old BBC broadcasts - no one would dare speak like that any more.

[hdw]

Another one - dilemma: dailemma vs Di(short i or e - take your pick). But pronunciation evolves as does language - RP has changed considerably in the last fifty years. Just listen to the old BBC broadcasts - no one would dare speak like that any more.

One sure giveaway that you're listening to a Tory if you switch on to a House of Commons debate is if they mention "this Hice".

Harry

[Loki]

Is this supposed to be serious? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hice

[Eric]

"Hice" originally derives from the way the royal family pronounce "house" (singular).

The Urban Dictionary is just making a joke about "-ouse words" in the plural, but the joke wears thin after multiple "hilarious" entries are invented by someone who has discovered one little joke.

[Eric]

A question about Spanish pronunciation.

In grammar books, there is a rough rule that the "c" (before "e" and "i") and "z" are pronounced "lispingly" only in (parts of) Spain and not in Latin America. Are there exceptions to this rule?

[Loki]

I think you are referring to what is called "seseo": especially in Latin America, people pronounce "s" instead of the frivative sound of "thing". I don't think there are exceptions, since it is basically an easier way of pronouncing a "difficult" sound. It wouldn't be logical if there were exceptions.
Still, let's wait for Stiffelio or others more competent than me.

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seseo

[hdw]

I don't think there are exceptions, since it is basically an easier way of pronouncing a "difficult" sound. It wouldn't be logical if there were exceptions.


Well, I don't know, the Wiki explanation says that seseo and ceceo are both found in Andalusia (Andalucía?). From my little knowledge of Spanish and my brief visits to that region, I would have said that seseo is typical of Andalusia, but obviously there are exceptions.

Harry

[Loki]

Well, I don't know, the Wiki explanation says that seseo and ceceo are both found in Andalusia (Andalucía?). From my little knowledge of Spanish and my brief visits to that region, I would have said that seseo is typical of Andalusia, but obviously there are exceptions.

Harry

Of course, at this point I think I've misunderstood his question. I was thinking about exceptions regarding words, not regarding geographical areas.

[mesnalty]

It's not really a matter of ease of pronunciation, the ceceo/seseo divide just exists for historical reasons. The series of sound changes is complicated, but the Wiki article seems to cover it pretty well. The upshot is that the ceceo appeared in peninsular Spanish after the colonization of the Americas, which is why it doesn't exist in any of the Latin American countries. So, as far as I know, there are no exceptions (except that not every region of Spain uses the ceceo).

[Loki]

Well, it could be, but I'm still convinced that markedness plays (played) a part. I mean, pronouncing the th sound as "s" is easier.
Anyway, I've got to check my notes about this.

[hdw]

Well, it could be, but I'm still convinced that markedness plays (played) a part. I mean, pronouncing the th sound as "s" is easier.
Anyway, I've got to check my notes about this.

Loki, aren't you speaking from the perspective of an Italian, for whom the -th- sound is difficult and unnatural? To me, and I'm sure to the vast majority of English-speakers, -th- is not "difficult" at all, and "thin" is as easy to say as "sin".

Even the Romans seem to have found -th- difficult, and any -th- word in Latin will be from Greek originally.

Harry

[Loki]

Indeed. At the beginning for us pronouncing that sound is difficult, because we don't have it. That's the same for you when you try to say something like "gnocchi", or "aglio". But from a more general point of view, the "th" sound is not easier than "s", or "t". Indeed not all the languages have the th, and in English creoles it generally disappears and becomes "t" (thing> ting). A beginner student of Spanish will probably say "siensia" instead of /θjénθja/ (ciencia, "science"), because he/she can't pronounce that sound yet, and then finds an easier solution.

[hdw]

Indeed. At the beginning for us pronouncing that sound is difficult, because we don't have it. That's the same for you when you try to say something like "gnocchi", or "aglio". But from a more general point of view, the "th" sound is not easier than "s", or "t". Indeed not all the languages have the th, and in English creoles it generally disappears and becomes "t" (thing> ting). A beginner student of Spanish will probably say "siensia" instead of /θjénθja/ (ciencia, "science"), because he/she can't pronounce that sound yet, and then finds an easier solution.

"Gnocchi" is difficult because we don't have that consonant-cluster in word-initial position in English, but there's no problem with the liquid + palatal in "figlio", as we have words like "folio" and "imbroglio" - not native English words originally, but quite at home in English-speakers' mouths now. And exactly the same combination of sounds can be heard in a phrase like "Will you ..."

Harry

[mesnalty]

Indeed, as Loki points out, [θ] is pretty rare cross-linguistically and often disappears from languages, creole and otherwise, which indicates that it is difficult to produce. Although the case of Spanish isn't a case of [θ] being lost in the Latin American dialects, but rather being gained in Castilian.

[hdw]

Indeed, as Loki points out, [θ] is pretty rare cross-linguistically and often disappears from languages, creole and otherwise, which indicates that it is difficult to produce. Although the case of Spanish isn't a case of [θ] being lost in the Latin American dialects, but rather being gained in Castilian.

Which seems to contradict your premise about the sound being difficult to pronounce. If so, why suddenly introduce it into the language? Where does it come from?

I've read that the uvular pronunciation of r in French started as an affectation at the French court. Does the similar r sound in Danish come from aping the French, or does it have another origin? It's also found in parts of Sweden and Norway which came under Danish influence.

Harry

[mesnalty]

Which seems to contradict your premise about the sound being difficult to pronounce. If so, why suddenly introduce it into the language? Where does it come from?

The Wikipedia article on seseo/ceceo describes the process in some detail. (It also mentions the popular but apocryphal explanation that some bygone Spanish king spoke with a lisp, and his pronunciation was adopted due to prestige.) Anyway, the fact that a sound is difficult to pronounce doesn't mean that it will never be introduced into a language, even if it does mean that it will be lost more often than it will be introduced, cross-linguistically. In this case, the introduction of [θ] was one of the outcomes of a series of changes, since one change often sets off a chain of other changes, which are motivated by the need to retain phonemic contrasts for the purposes of intelligibility.

[Eric]

I'm glad I now know the terms "seseo" and "ceceo", the latter having given rise to the lithping king and the "lúz folz tíz" theory.

As for the back (uvular) "r" sound, maybe all the French kings were Jewish, as Yiddish has a rather scrapy back "r"... Look at King Nicolas I. But don't listen to him for a back "r"; he doesn't have a Hungarian-Yiddish accent, as far as I know.

But as part of the chicken and egg theory of the lisping z and c in Spanish, if there was no difference to start with, why have written records used the z and c for hundreds of years? You don't write an s sound in three different ways just for fun.

The original reason I asked the question (cuestion) was that I like to hear the sound in my head even when reading silently to myself, and as I have no real preferences, wondered whether the standard Castilian or Latin American pronunciation would be the most acceptable throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

[Loki]

"Gnocchi" is difficult because we don't have that consonant-cluster in word-initial position in English, but there's no problem with the liquid + palatal in "figlio", as we have words like "folio" and "imbroglio" - not native English words originally, but quite at home in English-speakers' mouths now. And exactly the same combination of sounds can be heard in a phrase like "Will you ..."


I'm not sure whether you're really familiar with the sound in "figlio": "folio" and "imbroglio" have actually different sounds, as they're both pronounced with an "l". "figlio", on the other hand, is pronounced like this: http://www.dizionario.rai.it/ricerca.aspx (search "figlio" and click the "figlio" on the right). It is rather difficult to pronounce: indeed some dialects simplify the pronunciation converting "gl" in "ll": aglio> allio, scoglio> scollio...


As for the θ sound, I don't think it was suddendly introduced into Spanish.
Do we know by any chance why the [θ] and the [ð] (incidentally both present in Spanish) were introduced into (Old) English?

[Loki]

I've just found this, which explains why we have [θ] in Spanish: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reajuste_de_las_sibilantes_del_idioma_español.
It's in Spanish, and it's not easy to translate or re-write what it says in English. If someone who can read Spanish can and wants to re-write it here it would be great.

[Eric]

Thanks for that Wikipedia reference, Loki. There's quite a lot there, and I only half-understand it, but it does give some ideas about the possible patterns of change.

[Loki]

I half-understand it too, but not for the words themselves, but for the explanation of the changes!

[hdw]

I half-understand it too, but not for the words themselves, but for the explanation of the changes!

A favourite question in linguistics exams used to be: "Sound-changes have no exceptions. Discuss."

I used to get frustrated by the way in which linguists happily explain what happens when a sound-change occurs, but they are less good at explaining why the sound-change occurs in the first place. However there are exceptions (to that rule!).

For instance, in their "An Old English Grammar", Quirk and Wrenn (English-language scholars tend to have that kind of name), give a very fair account of the theories regarding the reason for i-mutation, a ubiquitous sound-change in the Germanic languages:-

"The generally accepted phonetic explanation of i-mutation is that the high front i or j palatalised the preceding consonant and that this in turn pulled the vowel of the stem towards its own position, raising or fronting it. The i or j which had thus fronted a preceding back vowel (or raised a front one) by strong attraction in articulation through and by means of the intervening consonant, was then absorbed into the palatalised consonant. This theory may be called 'mechanistic', because it is based entirely on the assumed workings of the speech-organs.

An alternative explanation is that in pronouncing the back vowel in the root-syllable the speaker unconsciously allows his mind and his tongue to 'anticipate' the i or j that is to come in the immediately succeeding syllable, and that the sounds first resulting from i-mutation were the original vowel plus an anticipatory high front vowel which then coalesced with the original stem-vowel to constitute the new form. Thus, for instance, in pronouncing *dōmjan 'judge', the j is supposed to have been mentally anticipated by the speaker, so that he would say something like dō-i-mjan, and that later this ō and i would unite to form the compromise front-round vowel [œ:] written oe, *dōimjan becoming dœman (there should be a macron on that œ), a form preserved in Angl(ian) but without unrounding to dēman in W(est) S(axon). This is a 'mentalistic' or psychological theory of i-mutation. The orthodox view of articulatory influence through the consonant is a theory of attraction and assimilation, while the mentalistic view is one of anticipation."

Harry

[Eric]

As far as I understand all of this, you can only have an anticipatory theory, if there is a large enough body of words where the palatalisation works in a regular way, before you "drag in" the ones that don't really belong there.

Could you give some concrete examples where the two theories can be tested against one another? The "doiman" example is not enough for us non-linguists to see where there are regular patterns, anticipation, and other factors ionvolved.

[mesnalty]

The other problem that historical linguists face is explaining sound changes in general. They've produced a lot of good results when it comes to what sound changes are possible, what sound changes are impossible, and which are more or less likely. But coming up with a predictive model of sound change in general is much more difficult (perhaps impossible) because of all the factors involved. I don't think the field has come up with anything approaching a general model of sound change. But in a sense, explanations of individual sound changes (like the one Harry quotes) are more interesting anyway.

[Loki]

Although it's a stupid television programme, it is something. Recently I discovered a little TV game (broadcast by RAI) in which people have to guess (or better, to say) the correct pronunciation of words that are often mispronounced (like foreign words that are now part of the Italian vocabulary). There are four words and there are DVDs that whoever calls can win (if they get four out of four of course). This is all the TV presenter is interested in. Fortunately there is also a linguist in the studio, who at the end of game explains why the word is pronounced in that way. The bad thing is that there's little time for the explanations, which are the most interesting part of the programme. Also, before the explanation we can listen to the correct prononunciation contained in the DOP (Dizionario di Ortografia e Pronunzia).
Here's an example, if anyone's interested (it's in Italian):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRpQgalC7WI&feature=related

Is there something similar in your countries?

[hdw]

Although it's a stupid television programme, it is something. Recently I discovered a little TV game (broadcast by RAI) in which people have to guess (or better, to say) the correct pronunciation of words that are often mispronounced (like foreign words that are now part of the Italian vocabulary). There are four words and there are DVDs that whoever calls can win (if they get four out of four of course). This is all the TV presenter is interested in. Fortunately there is also a linguist in the studio, who at the end of game explains why the word is pronounced in that way. The bad thing is that there's little time for the explanations, which are the most interesting part of the programme. Also, before the explanation we can listen to the correct prononunciation contained in the DOP (Dizionario di Ortografia e Pronunzia).
Here's an example, if anyone's interested (it's in Italian):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRpQgalC7WI&feature=related

Is there something similar in your countries?

I don't think so, speaking as one who watches little television, but I believe the Americans have televised spelling competitions.

Harry

[Loki]

I don't watch much television either, I found it on YouTube by chance. Here spelling competitions (which from time to time I see mentioned in American films or series) wouldn't make much sense (although a lot of people would "lose" anyway!).

[Eric]

I don't watch much telly either, and the programme would be banalissimo - if it weren't so interesting. As it is in what is for me a foreign language that I half-understand, such a clip is interesting to watch, not least to hear how much Italian I can understand when aimed at native-speakers.

As for Amsterdam, the Dutch themselves stress the last syllable, while the English stress the first one.

I would have guessed: bolsheVEEKo as the right pronounciation.

I would imagine that "foro" has an open first "o" sound.

But I didn't understand the second one.

The blonde presenter had to keep the programme moving and respond to phone calls - quite a job. But she didn't give the poor old professor much of a chance to open his mouth. Clashing aims.

[Stiffelio]

I don't watch much telly either, and the programme would be banalissimo - if it weren't so interesting. As it is in what is for me a foreign language that I half-understand, such a clip is interesting to watch, not least to hear how much Italian I can understand when aimed at native-speakers.

As for Amsterdam, the Dutch themselves stress the last syllable, while the English stress the first one.

I would have guessed: bolsheVEEKo as the right pronounciation.

I would imagine that "foro" has an open first "o" sound.

But I didn't understand the second one.

The blonde presenter had to keep the programme moving and respond to phone calls - quite a job. But she didn't give the poor old professor much of a chance to open his mouth. Clashing aims.

The second word was "titubo", present indicative, 1st person singular of the verb "tutubare", which in Italian means "to doubt" or "to vacillate". That was a tricky, apparently illogic pronunciation choice: "titubare" is accented on the third syllable, i.e. on the a, but "titubo" is accented on the i

[Loki]

As for Amsterdam, the Dutch themselves stress the last syllable, while the English stress the first one.

I would imagine that "foro" has an open first "o" sound.


In Italy nobody says Amsterdam, nor Rotterdam, although it is the right pronunciation. According to what the professor says in the programme, we should pronounce foreign proper nouns as they are pronounced in that language.

As for "foro", we distinguish between two completely different words: one is "foro" with the open "o", that means "hole", the other is "foro" with a closed "o", that means "forum", "court". So it's important to get the vowel right. For people who do not live in Tuscany these kind of words are tricky, because they do not distinguish between open and closed vowels as we do.
I wonder if Stiffelio has any difficulty in getting the difference between "fòro" and "foro", between "pèsca" and "pésca"...

[hdw]

The second word was "titubo", present indicative, 1st person singular of the verb "tutubare", which in Italian means "to doubt" or "to vacillate". That was a tricky, apparently illogic pronunciation choice: "titubare" is accented on the third syllable, i.e. on the a, but "titubo" is accented on the i


Reminds me of Tituba in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

Harry

[Eric]

Regional pronunciation still makes ripples in the UK:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8675120/Glaswegian-and-Brummie-accents-sound-more-stupid.html

[hdw]

Regional pronunciation still makes ripples in the UK:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8675120/Glaswegian-and-Brummie-accents-sound-more-stupid.html

I agree with the blogger who says it's like researchers doing a project to prove that shit is brown. Academic researchers have to justify their existence, and they often manage to get a grant to do research to prove what ordinary non-academics have known all along.

People talk about the RP (Received Pronunciation) accent in terms of class and snobbery, which to me is misguided. Undoubtedly it's the accent of many people who could be described as upper-crust (although a lot of royals and other aristocrats have peculiarities of speech that go beyond RP), but the main point about RP is that it's not associated with one particular locality, it's the accent basically of middle-class, educated people who tend to have good jobs, and most people automatically respond well to that kind of voice and think this person is probably intelligent and knows what s/he is talking about.

I've often heard Liverpool people talking, on TV or the radio, and I can honestly say that I have never heard anyone talking with a broad Liverpool accent who wasn't a trade union leader or an unemployed person or a pop singer. How you react to that kind of voice will depend on your political stance, I suppose. If you incline to the right in politics, you may feel that someone talking loudly in a broad Liverpool accent is a rabble-rouser or troublemaker. The Glaswegian accent can also sound very aggressive. Glasgow is full of highly-educated middle-class people holding down good jobs, and they may have a slight Glasgow accent that would be detectable to other Scots, but such people are unlikely to be so broadly Glaswegian that outsiders can't understand them.

In the case of comedians like Billy Connolly (Glaswegian), Jasper Carrot (Birmingham) or Arthur Smith (Cockney), they are of course likely to exaggerate their accent for comic effect. I bet Billy Connolly modifies his accent when he and Pamela are mixing with their Hollywood chums like Steve Martin.

Harry

[Eric]

Although I am a supporter of smaller languages that have a viable hinterland, dialects cannot do much else than remain a way of speaking that makes people feel at home within a certain area or region. Some people who have heard dialect spoken become fascinated, but these are often middle-class enthusiasts who have never lived "for real" in a dialect area themselves.

There is indeed also a difference between true dialect, using other grammar, words and expressions, and what one might call speaking the standard language, English in our case, with a regional accent.

As Harry suggests, outsiders will rate regional acccents highly or otherwise, and Brummie (from Birmingham), Scouse (from Liverpool) and Glaswegian (from Glasgow) are often mentioned as not being the most beautiful accents that exist. As Harry also suggests with Scouse, there is a tendency to associate the accent with trade union leaders, the unemployed, and pop singers, all people seeking an identity.

So I believe that the standard language serves, throughout any country, as a kind of national cement.

[Loki]

Yesterday I discovered, to my horror, that I didn't know the pronunciation of a word like "sandwich" (which is an older word than I thought). My OALD accepts both pronunciations (other dictionaries don't), but I would never have imagined /ˈsænwıdʒ/, especially because it's the first time I see a final "ch" (voiceless sound) pronounced /dʒ/ (like in fridge, therefore voiced).

[Eric]

Actually, I think that most Brits say either /sandwidge/ or /samwidge/ (I can't do the phonetic alphabet on my keyboard). Many people say "Norridge" (rhymes with "porridge") for "Norwich". These are things you learn by listening to conversations, not reading phonetic reproductions in dictionaries. And it is extremely important to stress that there is not one single correct pronunciation, plus a lot of wrong ones. For instance, half of Britain says "bath" with a short "a", the other half with a long "a" sound.

[Loki]

Actually, I think that most Brits say either /sandwidge/ or /samwidge/ (I can't do the phonetic alphabet on my keyboard). Many people say "Norridge" (rhymes with "porridge") for "Norwich". These are things you learn by listening to conversations, not reading phonetic reproductions in dictionaries. And it is extremely important to stress that there is not one single correct pronunciation, plus a lot of wrong ones. For instance, half of Britain says "bath" with a short "a", the other half with a long "a" sound.

Of course more than one pronunciation is accepted. The dictionary should give you the standard one, although it does not mean the most common. I remember that my Welsh teacher sometimes corrected my pronunciation of a word, although I had looked it up in my dictionary: she had never heard the word pronounced that way (for instance she corrected my pronouncing genre /ˈʒɒnrə/).
As for "sandwich", you have added to pronunciation, but there's still that final dge sound of "fridge" which has surprised me.

[Eric]

The word "genre", so beloved of the highfalutin types at universities who want to show off that they can say French words, is damned difficult to pronounce. As well as the /ˈʒɒnrə/ version (which I'm copying from the previous posting), there is in Britain /zhawnrö/, i.e. with a long vowel in the middle, and sometimes with the /-awn/ nasalised, as in French. Which clever English-speaking scholar is to blame from stealing that particular word from French, I do not know.

Talking of pronunciation, here is a little rhyme that works in British English at least, and is usually sung:

Life is but a...
Life is but a...
Melancholy flower...
Melancholy flower...
Life is but a melon...
Life is but a melon...
Cauliflower...
Cauliflower.

Which moves from graceful moodiness to vegetables, without instrinsically altering the pronunciation.

[Loki]

The word "genre", so beloved of the highfalutin types at universities who want to show off that they can say French words, is damned difficult to pronounce. As well as the /ˈʒɒnrə/ version (which I'm copying from the previous posting), there is in Britain /zhawnrö/, i.e. with a long vowel in the middle, and sometimes with the /-awn/ nasalised, as in French. Which clever English-speaking scholar is to blame from stealing that particular word from French, I do not know.


It's the pronunciation provided by the dictionary, so a foreigner cannot but learn that pronunciation. My Welsh teacher said /'dʒinə/.

Nice rhyme: I knew something similar in Italian, but I can't remember it.

[Eric]

I'm not really sure whether you have given all the phonetic symbols for what your Welsh teacher said, but I don't recognise that pronounciation, which would roughly be "jinner" (rhyming with thinner, dinner, etc.) if written in an English way.

[Loki]

Would someone be so kind as to explain to me why on earth my dictionary gives me /'heipni/ as the pronunciation of "halfpenny"? It's not just the pronunciation that strikes me, but also where the stress is placed: if you were to say "half penny" separately, you would stress "penny" and not "half", and more precisely the "e" in penny, which is instead elided.

[Eric]

In the olden days, when I was young, we in Britain had a complex system of currency where the pound sterling (£), then worth quite a lot, was divided into shillings, and these into pence (N.B. "pennies" means the metal coins, "pence" the value).

In those days you did indeed say /heipni/ for half a penny, and /tupöns/ and /threpöns/ for two and three pence. The words, like the coins, just got worn down because they were used so much. Why the word wasn't /haapni/ is something that I do not know.

Nowadays, a penny is hardly worth anything, so I think the smallest coin you will often find in your pocket is the 20p coin, and also the 50p coin. People tend to say twenty pee, and fifty pee and no one sniggers at the fact that the word "pee" also denotes urine.

[Loki]

I'm not really sure whether you have given all the phonetic symbols for what your Welsh teacher said, but I don't recognise that pronounciation, which would roughly be "jinner" (rhyming with thinner, dinner, etc.) if written in an English way.

I checked with a friend of mine, and he has confirmed that she pronounced "genre" as /'dʒinə/. I can understand that Brits may have difficulties of pronouncing this word. And I'm now wondering how is it possible to pronounce it in the plural! It becomes terrible: /ˈʒɒnr(ə)s/.

[Eric]

As I wrote, I've never heard of people in Britain saying "jinner" or "ginner" which is what I interpret the Welsh person's pronunciation as being. What I've heard mostly is /zhawn-rö/ with the plural /zhawn-röz/.

[Loki]

I was searching something about Leicester Square in London, and it came to me how strange the pronunciation of Leicester and Gloucester is. I remember a scene in a film where an American woman and a British man talk, and she says something about "Glau-chester", and he then corrects her: "It's pronounced Gloster by the way!".

[Eric]

There are many place names in Britain that even Americans frequently get wrong.

We say /Wooster/ Sauce, like Bertie Wooster in the novels by Wodehouse (pronounced /woodhouse/, by the way). But it's written Worcester Sauce, so the Americans say /wöörsesster/. And they indeed travel to /glo[o]sesster/ and watch films on /Leesesster/ Square.

But even within Britain places names can be tricky. Educated Brits say /shrowzbri/ for Shrewsbury (rhymes with toes, hose, pose, those), whilst locals say it (nearly) as it is spelt /shroozbri/. The -bury bit often ends up as /-bry/. Norwich is, for some perverse reason, often pronounced /norridge/ rhyming with porridge. And the Wycombe of High Wycombe is pronounced /wiköm/ not /why-combi/. And Wymondham is pronounced /wind-öm/ as is the name of the sci-fi writer John Wyndham, i.e. with an "i" sound as in pill, finch, sick.

And yet the quaint Cotswold village of Wyre Piddle is pronounced as it is written, like the question "wherefore a urination?".