The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

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Zaarin
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Zaarin »

I grant that I don't have a good ear for glottal stops, but I can definitely hear the glottal stop in button or uh-oh or what (contrary to that article, word-final /p k/ don't debuccalize for me; they simply have no audible release)--I don't hear it in I or other word-initial positions. :/ Dialectal perhaps?
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

Here I am used to [ˈãːẽ̯mə̃ːɾ̃ə(ː)] or [ˈãːẽ̯mə̃ː], without loss of the diphthong in the stressed syllable, which I never hear around here. The spelling I'mma is misleading here because the final vowel in [ˈãːẽ̯mə̃ː] is always nasalized and long.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

Vijay wrote:
Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:I'd say [ˈʔajmə], but apparently, it's supposed to be [ˈʔaːmə].
...There are initial glottal stops in English? :?
Huh? Of course there are.
English speakers usually insert a glottal stop before word initial vowels, like in the words it, ate, and ouch.
I do not normally hear glottal stops before word-initial vowels here, and I can hear the difference between when I insert one and when I don't.
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vlürch »

Khmer: either [x̩mɜː] or [kʰə̆mɜː]
foliage: [fo̞liəd͡ʒ]
imma: [ɑmə~ɑə̯mɐ~ɑɪ̯mɑ], etc. are all good to me...
Pole, the wrote:
[kʰæmˈboʊɾijən]
Weird. I would expect [dʒ] and not [ɾ] there.
It always makes me cringe when I hear "Cambodia" said in English for exactly that reason, and personally I'd say [kɐmboʊ̯d͡ʒən] even if it's "wrong" simply because the "correct" pronunciation makes it sound like Cam-Body-A rather than Cambodia. The only context where I'd say anything other than [kɐmboʊ̯d͡ʒɑ] would be [kæmbɔdiɑ] in reference to the Killing Fields since there are lots of bodies there, but that'd be just for the sake of the pun.
Pole, the wrote:
Sumelic wrote:
Pole, the wrote:
[kʰæmˈboʊɾijən]
Weird. I would expect [dʒ] and not [ɾ] there.
The letter "d" is not usually palatalized to /dʒ/ before the letter "i". It only is standard in a few words, like "soldier" /ˈsoʊldʒər/. In most words, "di" before a vowel letter is pronounced /di/ […]
Ok, but isn't the «-dia» supposed to be /-dʒə/ in that particular name? (Cf. the name of the country in other languages.)
Exactly what I always thought and how I feel, but English is weird as fuck when it comes to pronunciation. Even in Finnish, it's Kambodža [kɑmbod͡ʒɑ], and there are literally only a handful of loanwords where that sound is used. I guess English tries really hard to be different when it comes to pronouncing Cambodia.

~

How about:
bullying

For me, [bʊ̠liʔ̞ʲɪ̟ŋ] or something. I'm not sure how to transcribe the sonud that's between the [i​] and [ɪ̟]; it's not a glottal stop but something really faint definitely happens in that same general area while the "i-ness" never breaks, so I used [ʔ̞ʲ]... I also used [ʊ̠] because I don't think it's fully back [u̞] or fully high [u̟], but it's definitely nowhere near as front as the [ʊ] audio file on Wikipedia or as low as the [o] audio file on Wikipedia... I think it's exactly like the Russian example word of the former sound, though, so if that's really [ʊ], then it's [ʊ], but it sounds closer to to me; I guess I could just write and leave it at that, but whatever. I also used [ɪ̟] instead of [ɪ] because it's closer to [i​] in every way than [e] or [ɨ], but also not quite [i​]... yeah, it's unnecessarily narrow and probably all wrong from the perspective of native speakers, but well.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Nortaneous »

foliage /fʌwlɨjɨdʒ/
homologous /həmɑləgəs/
homosexual /hʌwmʌwsekʃ(ɨ)wəl/
Cambodia /kæmbʌwdɨjə/
imma /ajmə(nə)/
bullying /bulɨjɨŋ/
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

Vlürch wrote:I guess English tries really hard to be different when it comes to pronouncing Cambodia.
Nah, we just suck at being accurate because we're arrogant and stupid like that.
How about:
bullying
[ˈbʊlijɪŋ]

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by finlay »

Vijay wrote:
Zaarin wrote:
Vijay wrote:I'd say [ˈʔajmə], but apparently, it's supposed to be [ˈʔaːmə].
...There are initial glottal stops in English? :?
Huh? Of course there are.
English speakers usually insert a glottal stop before word initial vowels, like in the words it, ate, and ouch.
if you pronounce it in isolation or at the beginning of a sentence, then perhaps. it's more of an articulatory artifact than a part of the language, though. this is in contrast to german which has them at the beginning of words in the middle of sentences too.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

For me, there's a glottal stop at the beginning unless it's directly preceded by another consonant (I'm including semivowels in the definition of "consonant" here), including after a pause.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ »

German: ich and Tisch. Where is the sch-soft ch merger popular in Germany? I came across a German man creating math videos both in English and in German and I'm trying to figure out where he can be from. The only place I thought about was Cologne and the Ripuarian dialect/language, but he's got only the clear variant of l.
EDIT: https://youtu.be/9uWcGrggrQU an example video.
Last edited by ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ on Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

Is he on YouTube? Can you post the link(s)?

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Pole, the »

therapeutic
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Travis B. »

[ˌθɛːʁəˈpʰjuɾɘʔk], [ˌθɛːʁəˈpʰjuɘʔk]
Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ »

Why is the rum gone?
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Sumelic »

therapeutic
/ˌθerəˈpjutɪk/ or /ˌθerəˈpjutək/ (I'm not sure)
something like [ˌθe̞ːɚ̯ɹʷəˈpj̊ʉːɾɪk] or [ˌθe̞ːɚ̯ɹʷəˈpj̊ʉːɾək]

I don't know the vowel quality of the first vowel that well; I'm just using [e̞ːɚ] to indicate that it is rhotacized, at least at the end—it seems somewhat diphthongal, but not very prominently so, and definitely not an opening diphthong—and it's e-like, seems to be a bit higher than my /ɛ/ maybe (definitely different in quality somehow), but definitely not as high as a typical French /e/ or German /eː/. The vowel I transcribed as [ʉ] is probably a bit of a rising diphthong but I didn't write that because I'm not sure if the final element is as far back as cardinal IPA or not.

Why is the rum gone?
/ˈwaɪɪzðəˈrʌmˌgɑn/
[ˈwaːɪɪzðəˈɹʷɐ̃ːmˌgɑ̃ːn]

further phonetic details:
vowel in "is" could be elided, /ð/ could be assimilated to something like [z] or fortited to something like [d̪ð], the phonemically voiced obstruents /z/, /ð/, /g/ might be partially or fully unvoiced (I don't know; I can't really hear that particular non-contrastive detail in English), maybe final /n/ might be elided.

In both transcriptions, I just used [ɹʷ] to represent my syllable-initial and intervocalic r-sound; I don't know exactly what its main articulation is. The secondary articulation actually seems like it may be more labiodental than labial, but since there is also some kind of back articulation (something like velar or uvular or pharyngeal), [ɹʷ] seemed a better transcription than [ɹʋ].

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:German: ich and Tisch. Where is the sch-soft ch merger popular in Germany? I came across a German man creating math videos both in English and in German and I'm trying to figure out where he can be from. The only place I thought about was Cologne and the Ripuarian dialect/language, but he's got only the clear variant of l.
EDIT: https://youtu.be/9uWcGrggrQU an example video.
I don't hear a merger here.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ »

Vijay wrote:I don't hear a merger here.
Don't you? In the beginning he says Mechanik with a clear [ʃ], and every following word with soft ch has the sch sound. Maybe other people tell if they hear it or not, the odds you are wrong are equal to the possibility I am.
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

Can you tell me where exactly he says Mechanik (what time in the video)? Because I've been listening for at least three and a half minutes and haven't heard him saying it even once.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by KathTheDragon »

About 3 seconds in.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

Omg, was he really saying Mechanik there?! I thought it was some other word entirely but didn't know what. :o

I just did a search for "Meschanik." Apparently, it's a pretty common spelling, and there's even a search result from a book from 1874 where <Mechanik> occurs six times but <Meschanik> also occurs twice in quick succession.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ »

Hey,
If you know or learn Irish Gaelic language, what pronunciation do you use? I've listened to some videos of English speakers speaking Irish and it sounded almost nothing like the pronunciation Wikipedia gives, and I've never heard any kind of native Irish Gaelic.
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:Hey,
If you know or learn Irish Gaelic language, what pronunciation do you use? I've listened to some videos of English speakers speaking Irish and it sounded almost nothing like the pronunciation Wikipedia gives, and I've never heard any kind of native Irish Gaelic.
You'll have two issues here.
One is that the dialects vary considerably, both in structural ways (like mná might be /mnO/ in one place but /mrA/ in another, in a predictable way), and in unpredictable word-by-word oddities.

The other is that a lot of modern speakers apparently have very "bad" accents, basically substituting everything for the nearest English phoneme.

Two places you might be interested in looking are teanglann.ie (a dictionary, with multi-dialect audio pronunciations for a large number of words), and fuaimeanna.ie (which also has a lot of audio samples, although here the emphasis is on exemplar words to show different phonemes and dialect differences, so the number of words used is much smaller).

Were there any particular issues you were wondering about?
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ »

Salmoneus wrote:Were there any particular issues you were wondering about?
Lack of palatalisation of many, especially labial consonants, using diphthongs in place of reported monophthongs (e.g. [eɪ̯] for /eː/), affricate realisations of palatalised coronal stops ([tʃ dʒ] for /tʲ dʲ/), some weird stuff going on with the broad and slender l (probably coming from different pronunciations of l in Irish English, right?), such as switching inconsistently from one to the other or using just one type of l (maybe there was only one type of l in these videos).
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Vijay »

I'm pretty sure I've even seen (and posted) a video where someone sings the word chuala and pronounces it like [kʰula] or something.

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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by Salmoneus »

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:Were there any particular issues you were wondering about?
Lack of palatalisation of many, especially labial consonants, using diphthongs in place of reported monophthongs (e.g. [eɪ̯] for /eː/), affricate realisations of palatalised coronal stops ([tʃ dʒ] for /tʲ dʲ/), some weird stuff going on with the broad and slender l (probably coming from different pronunciations of l in Irish English, right?), such as switching inconsistently from one to the other or using just one type of l (maybe there was only one type of l in these videos).
That all sounds like just heavily anglicised Irish. Diphthongisation of some long vowels does occur in some dialects, but it seems very convenient that the example you give is one that English has. Some dialects do come close to affricates for the palatalised coronals, though. [iirc, they're more afficated the further north you go?]
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Re: The "How do You Pronounce X" Thread

Post by linguoboy »

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:If you know or learn Irish Gaelic language, what pronunciation do you use?
West Muskerry. (My bible is Ó Cuív, 1968.)
ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:I've listened to some videos of English speakers speaking Irish and it sounded almost nothing like the pronunciation Wikipedia gives, and I've never heard any kind of native Irish Gaelic.
I agree with Sal that you're hearing a lot very anglicised Irish. For example, I believe that historically the affricate pronunciation of slender d and t was primarily an Ulster feature, but nowadays it seems to be the default among learners since it's much easier than learning the more traditional distinctions (for Muskerry, palatalised alveolar vs velarised dental).

I don't think I've come across any instructional videos online by native dialect speakers as opposed to fluent L2 speakers of non-traditional Irish. But if you want me to point you to some spontaneous examples of native Irish, I can do that easily enough.

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