Pronouncing writers' names right

[Eric]

"Mac" and "Mc" names are not always easy. Mostly, the "mac" part is unstressed, but not always. For instance, the word "mackintosh" (which also means a raincoat, presumably after its designer) is stressed on the first syllable, whereas Macmillan, the name of a former prime-minister of Britain and also a contemporary poet is stressed on the "-mill" part. Macaulay is pronounced /mö-caw-li/, the "-lay" part is pronounced "-li". Do not be distracted by Oil of Ulay, the face cream or hand cream, or whatever it is.

[accidie]

I've been too lazy to learn proper phonetic symbols, so I don't know whether you two are offering the same pronunciation of Macauley? At any rate, the one I was taught was M(uh)COALee.

Thanks for help with those wicked Polish names. Bit of a side-track, but it set me wondering about Polish use of (apparent) 'l' with a slash through it, pronounced as 'w'. Is there any way in which this letter could have evolved from L sound? Shouldn't have thought so--wascally wabbit, sure, but can't see how wittle wion might be parallel. Was wondering whether it was always an independent letter that simply happens to resemble L, rather as a final 's' in English script used to resemble 'f'. . .

[Eric]

I too don't use phonetic symbols, because of the hassle of cutting and pasting them, one by one, from some table or other. I would not pronounce the the name Macaulay with a "coal" sound but a "cawl" sound. In British English at least these are two distinct sounds, as in hole and haul, bowl and ball.

[Eric]

A separate point of Accidie's is the Polish L-with-a-line-through-it:

ł

Yes, this is a "w" sound in modern spoken Polish as in the town of: Łódź pronounced /wooch/ to rhyme with putsch.

But just by its shape you can see that it has evolved from an ordinary "L". It is, in older Polish and in Russian a "thick ell" which approaches a "w" sound. Whereas in modern Polish it is a "w" sound, while the ordinary "L" is like our English one.

So they are two distinct sounds, unlike the 18th century convention of writing those funny esses, which are no different in sound to ordinary ones.

[Eric]

It's a pain trying to find Polish accents to be able to reproduce them here. But a name where the difference between the Ł and the L matters:


The composer Lutosławski has an ordinary ell sound at the beginning, and a double-u sound in the middle of the word. And the "-aw" is pronounced "aff". So: /luto-swaffskee/.

[Eric]

Two non-fiction authors of linguistic books are Brazil and Onions, often pronounced /BRAZZ-il/ and /oh-NAAY-önz/ as if the latter name were written O'Nions.

In names such as Dickens and Austen, you tend to pronounce the -en part as -in, thus /DIK-inz/ and /OS-tin/. And Brontë is pronounced /BRON-ti/.

[Eric]

Hungarian names are tricky to pronounce, not least because, for example, the "sz" is pronounced "sh" in Polish, but "s" in Hungarian. And "zs" is a "zh" sound. In Hungarian, the "sh" sound is written "s". All names are stressed on the first syllable. So:

Antal Szerb /antal serb/
George (György) Soros /shorosh/ (György is often anglified or germanified as with Georg Lukács /lukaach/)
Dezsö Kosztolányi /dezhöö kostonlaanyi/
Ferenc Juhász /ferents yoo-haas/
János Pilinszky /yaanosh pilinski/
László Krasznahorkai /laasloh krasna-horkaay/
Mihály Babits /mee-haay bobbich/

And so on, and so forth. Once you know how to pronounce Hungarian it is a very phonetic language - what is written is, except for a few old names, also how you pronounce it.

[Eric]

What is written with a "c", with or without an accent over it, becomes a problem with many names of East & Central European origin. At the end of Croatian names, the c-acute is a "ch" sound to use the English way of writing it. And the accent over the "c" in the next word is another kind of "ch" sound: "četvrtak". But a "c" without any accent is often a "ts" sound. This all sounds pretty confusing, but if you learn any language from that part of the world (assuming it's written in our alphabet) you soon get the hang of it.

[RamonaQ]

č - as in chop, chalk
ć - as in pitcher, peachy - a bit softer than č
ž - as in the j in Beijing or Jacques, or the s in vision
š - sh
đ - as in John, Jack
dj - something between the J in Beijing and the j in John - differentiating when to use Đ as opposed to Dj is one of my greatest problems when writing in Croatian!

[RamonaQ]

One more note about writers' names and pronouncing them - the letter J has many sounds, depending on the language.

Spanish: Juan (huan), Julio (Hulio)
Croatian: Jadranka (pronounced Yadranka), Ilija (Iliya), Maja (Maya) etc.
French: Jacques ...

[Eric]

You mean as in Khulio Kortazar, Yadranka, and Zhak? I understand the difference between the harder c-hachek and softer c-acute, as the phenomenon occurs in Polish, though with different spelling. The problem is that most of the computer geeks inventing things are Americans who don't have any feeling or sensitivity regarding the accents over or under letters. So, I believe that his name is Shimich and that she's called Ugreshich, but it's written with a "c" without an accent, so the uneducated English-speakers sometimes pronounce it as a "k" sound.

In English, Beijing is usually pronounced with the same sound as John and Jack and Azerbaijan. In other words /dzh/. But some people do say /bey-zhing/.

The difference between /dzh/ and /dy/ is a problem that occurs in British English, too. So water on the grass in the early morning (dew; /dyoo/) and a person from Israel (Jew /dzhoo/) are not pronounced the same by educated people, but very many people pronounce them both like the Semite. As well as in the phrase "D'you know...?"

[Daniel del Real]

I'm curious on how to pronounce correctly the name of Arnošt Lustig. Everything looks pretty standard but does any of you know what's the effect of the dash over the s?
According to wiki, it's supposed to be pronounced like this: [ˈarnoʃt ˈlustɪk]). Then the Czech phonetic alphabet show this:

ʃ

šelest

shell

So if my findings are correct this should be pronounced Arnosht Lustik. Please let me know my grade on my homework.

[Eric]

The wiggle over the "s", or "háchek" as it's known in the trade is, as you suggest, the way the Czechs, Slovaks, Latvians, Lithuanians, and some of the Balkan Slav languages render a "sh" sound, as in shell, shock, shoe, shallow, ship, etc. For those sophisticated among you, some of these languages also have an "s" with an acute accent, which is softer than the s-háchek. But that is a finesse that only need concern those actually learning to speak the languages in question.

As far as I can see from the red bit that Daniel has posted, the phonetic rendering of the name of the Czech author is perfect and exact, even including the marks for the stress of the word (i.e. the first syllable in each case). As I've said, I'd use the phonetic alphabet more if it didn't involve too much cutting and pasting. Also: the "g" at the end of a word in Czech becomes a "k" sound.

So Daniel gets full marks for his homework.

[Eric]

P.S. The Poles don't use the háchek accent over s, z, and c. Instead, they write sz, rz (or a z with a dot over it) and cz. That's why we in English, for some perverse reason, write Czech with the "cz" which isn't actually used in the Czech language itself. This may be ancient spelling, though.

Many Czech author's names get pronounced wrongly on a regular basis. Do remember the first syllable stress (doubled vowel means long):

VAAT-slaff HAV-el

MIL-an KUN-dera

LUD-viik VATS-u-liik

YOSS-eff SHKVOR-ets-kii

MI-khal AY-vass (the "ay" as in the English "eye", "pie", "fly")

KA-rel CHAP-ek

YAA-khim TOP-ol

YAR-o-slaff HASH-ek

I'm using the "u" for what we usually write "oo" in English, but the short version of the sound, as in "put", "foot". Because the length of the vowel is important in Czech (but not in Polish). These are all things you learn when you dabble in the Slavic languages.

[Daniel del Real]

P.S. The Poles don't use the háchek accent over s, z, and c. Instead, they write sz, rz (or a z with a dot over it) and cz. That's why we in English, for some perverse reason, write Czech with the "cz" which isn't actually used in the Czech language itself. This may be ancient spelling, though.
.

Eye opening thread for me. Now I'm finally understanding how the pronunciation of Duke's basketball team coach Mike Krzyzewski goes. According to wikipedia /ʃəˈʃɛvski/ shə-shev-ski; Polish: Krzyżewski [kʂɨˈʐɛ(f)ski]
I assume that the K at the beginning produces no sound; rz makes the "sh" sound and now the question goes in terms of the "y" making a vowel "eh" sound and the "z" acting the same way as the rz.

[pesahson]

K is heard in there. Rz and ż are pronounced exactly the same way, though they don't sound like sh. Sz makes the sh sound, although when speaking fast, the first rz in Krzyżewski sounds very like it. Polish is my first language that's why it's hard for me to find accurate English equivalents that would really sound properly.
I have a link though. At the beginning of the interview, the radio host introduces Janusz Krzyżewski. I hope he doesn't say it too fast, but he makes a pause after his first name so the surname should be easily heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfOFlPuqLis

ž - as in the j in Beijing or Jacques, or the s in vision

That's what rz and ż sound like.

[luckystar8914]

vietnam visa, vietnam visa on arrival

[Hamlet]

This is tricky, I think that (unless your are after the pronunciation right there and then...) that listening to radio and a lot of audiobooks/CD is one way of picking up on pronunciation. I'm learning to appreciate audiobooks, there's a vast library out there now.

[Eric]

To pick up on Pesahson's point about "zh" sounds in Polish, we do have more or less such a sound in English in words like "measure", "pleasure" and indeed Doctor Zhivago.

I don't know any Vietnamese writers to pronounce, but even within Europe, there are many famous names that are pronounced a long way from how you write them.

[Hamlet]

This is tricky, I think that (unless your are after the pronunciation right there and then...) that listening to radio and a lot of audiobooks/CD is one way of picking up on pronunciation. I'm learning to appreciate audiobooks, there's a vast library out there now.

--just to qualify, I was reading the Aeneid a few years back, and began to obsess at times over the exaxct pronuncation of that word, in the ancient Greek works, or Roman lit, there's a considerable number of words which you might question, from Xenophons to whomever, character names esp. and so it's sometimes useful to catch these on Radio.

I have found a few online software options, and they were pretty good, "irrevocable" has 3 acceptable ways to utter it for example ..... in law I tended to use it a an "irrevocable heriditament" and it was said with a hard --VOCK-- in the middle in lawyer-speak, but the quick and easy flowing ir---reehverikible seems to do well for civilians and normal types.