Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlearn

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
User avatar
jal
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2633
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:03 am
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by jal »

Two in a row from a YouTube vid: "disingenious" (pronounced the second part as "genius") and "verbatim" (stressed on the first syllable, like Dutch (or, like I think the Dutch is pronounced, I'm not sure anymore)).


JAL

User avatar
Jonlang
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 305
Joined: Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:21 am
Location: Cymru
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Jonlang »

Ryusenshi wrote:For a long time, I thought fuzz had the FOOT vowel.
It probably does somewhere in the north of England, like Manchester and maybe Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.

User avatar
Soap
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1228
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: Scattered disc
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Soap »

If "disingenious" is an acceptable word, I agree it should rhyme with genius. But I want to see the context .... we don't really need a word for the opposite of "ingenious" , so unless it's clear the speaker did mean exactly that I suspect they meant to use the similar but etymologically distinct "disingenuous".
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Image

User avatar
jal
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 2633
Joined: Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:03 am
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by jal »

Soap wrote:If "disingenious" is an acceptable word
Or, I made a typo.


JAL

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

I didn't have these incorrect pronunciations very long, but I still had to unlearn them: In preparation for visiting New Mexico last month, I read up a bit on Pueblo history. Most of the pueblos have Spanish names, so I pronounced them as I would in Spanish. That worked fine for places like "Laguna", "Sandia", and "San Ildefonso", but led me astray on "Acoma", "Cochiti", and "Isleta".

Acoma comes from the self-designation ʔáák’u and is pronounced with initial stress. (In Spanish, it is spelled Ácoma.) Similarly, Cochiti is from Eastern Keresan Kotyit and also bears initial stress in English, although in this case the Spanish demonym is cochití.

Isleta is transparently derived from Spanish but the /e/ is mapped to English /eh/ rather than English /ey/. The same is true of Jemez (initial stress). Additionally, my local informant pronounced this /ˈhehməz/. I didn't notice that his dialect lacked shwi generally, so I initially parsed this as Hemas. (It doesn't help that the name of a local restaurant, Hema's Kitchen, is pronounced similarly.)

User avatar
Soap
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1228
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: Scattered disc
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Soap »

I was surprised visiting Albuquerque that people use true Spanish pronunciations for many names. I heard Jemez with monophtongs, not normal eng vowels. Perhaps it's a function of how familiar the speaker is, though .... The person speaking was familiar with both Spanish & Navajo.
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Image

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

Soap wrote:I was surprised visiting Albuquerque that people use true Spanish pronunciations for many names. I heard Jemez with monophtongs, not normal eng vowels. Perhaps it's a function of how familiar the speaker is, though .... The person speaking was familiar with both Spanish & Navajo.
My local informant had very limited familiarity with Spanish. (At one point I drilled him on the paradigm for ser and found he knew less than half the present-tense forms.) Interestingly, almost exactly the same proportion of residents (28%) speak Spanish at home in both New Mexico and California, but I found Californian pronunciations much more likely to diverge from Spanish. I suspect that has something to do with history: the majority of Spanish-speakers in California are recent arrivals whereas New Mexico has such a longstanding Spanish-speaking community that it's preserved its own dialect of colonial Spanish.

User avatar
Soap
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1228
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: Scattered disc
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Soap »

Undine is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "mean", not "mine". I don't think I will change my pronunciation, but I haven't said the word out loud in 20 years and probably won't within the next 20. (It was in a popular video game and an unrelated book I found once.)
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Image

User avatar
Salmoneus
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3197
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: One of the dark places of the world

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Salmoneus »

linguoboy wrote:
Soap wrote:I was surprised visiting Albuquerque that people use true Spanish pronunciations for many names. I heard Jemez with monophtongs, not normal eng vowels. Perhaps it's a function of how familiar the speaker is, though .... The person speaking was familiar with both Spanish & Navajo.
My local informant had very limited familiarity with Spanish. (At one point I drilled him on the paradigm for ser and found he knew less than half the present-tense forms.) Interestingly, almost exactly the same proportion of residents (28%) speak Spanish at home in both New Mexico and California, but I found Californian pronunciations much more likely to diverge from Spanish. I suspect that has something to do with history: the majority of Spanish-speakers in California are recent arrivals whereas New Mexico has such a longstanding Spanish-speaking community that it's preserved its own dialect of colonial Spanish.
Talking of Spanish: I just heard, on a video, somebody pronouncing "Jerez" as /h@rEf/. (not real trill there, just English /r/). In hindsight this is an obvious pronunciation to find, but at the time it kind of threw me for some reason.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

User avatar
Zaarin
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1136
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:00 pm

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Zaarin »

Soap wrote:Undine is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "mean", not "mine". I don't think I will change my pronunciation, but I haven't said the word out loud in 20 years and probably won't within the next 20. (It was in a popular video game and an unrelated book I found once.)
Huh, so it is. Somehow that makes Undine Spragg seem even more unlikable. :p
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

Sumelic
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 385
Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2015 7:05 pm

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Sumelic »

Soap wrote:Undine is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "mean", not "mine". I don't think I will change my pronunciation, but I haven't said the word out loud in 20 years and probably won't within the next 20.
Ah, that's news to me as well. Words ending in "-ine" have fairly unpredictable pronunciations (e.g. "divine" vs. "marine" vs. "doctrine"). There seems to be variability in the stressed syllable: MW says " \ ˌən-ˈdēn , ˈən-ˌdēn \". The stress in German, which seems to have been an important source for this word, is apparently on the second syllable. Collins does mention a pronunciation with the "price" vowel in its entry for American English: "ʌnˈdin ; undēnˈ; ˈʌndin ; unˈdēn; ˈʌndaɪn ; unˈdīn".
Soap wrote:It was in a popular video game
Is this talking about Undertale? There seem to be a number of other games (mainly from Japan) that use "undine" as the name of a fantasy "race", but that was the first thing I thought of when reading your comment. The Undertale character's name seems to be spelled "Undyne" and to be (officially) pronounced with the "price" vowel, interestingly enough. I don't know if this is an intentionally altered pronunciation to make a pun with the words "die" and "undying", or if it is a sign that Toby Fox pronounces the noun "undine" with the "price" vowel.

The "Behind the Name" comments for the name "Undine" mention another unusual pronunciation, "oon-DEE-nee".

User avatar
Salmoneus
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3197
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: One of the dark places of the world

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Salmoneus »

I say it as un-deen - both syllables stressed, not sure which is primarily. I've heard the un-dyne pronounciation as well, though.
Blog: [url]http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/[/url]

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

yangfiretiger121
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 114
Joined: Mon May 29, 2017 11:22 am

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by yangfiretiger121 »

Sumelic wrote:
Soap wrote:Undine is apparently pronounced to rhyme with "mean", not "mine". I don't think I will change my pronunciation, but I haven't said the word out loud in 20 years and probably won't within the next 20.
Ah, that's news to me as well. Words ending in "-ine" have fairly unpredictable pronunciations (e.g. "divine" vs. "marine" vs. "doctrine"). There seems to be variability in the stressed syllable: MW says " \ ˌən-ˈdēn , ˈən-ˌdēn \". The stress in German, which seems to have been an important source for this word, is apparently on the second syllable. Collins does mention a pronunciation with the "price" vowel in its entry for American English: "ʌnˈdin ; undēnˈ; ˈʌndin ; unˈdēn; ˈʌndaɪn ; unˈdīn".
Soap wrote:It was in a popular video game
Is this talking about Undertale? There seem to be a number of other games (mainly from Japan) that use "undine" as the name of a fantasy "race", but that was the first thing I thought of when reading your comment. The Undertale character's name seems to be spelled "Undyne" and to be (officially) pronounced with the "price" vowel, interestingly enough. I don't know if this is an intentionally altered pronunciation to make a pun with the words "die" and "undying", or if it is a sign that Toby Fox pronounces the noun "undine" with the "price" vowel.

The "Behind the Name" comments for the name "Undine" mention another unusual pronunciation, "oon-DEE-nee".
Don't forget tabletop roleplays, such as Pathfinder.

User avatar
Soap
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1228
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: Scattered disc
Contact:

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Soap »

Ah, thanks. So my pronunciation is okay after all. Gotta look beyond wiktionary & wikipedia sometimes.
Sumelic wrote:Is this talking about Undertale?
Nope, much older .... Secret of Mana by Squaresoft in 1992. Very iconic RPG for me, and influenced my conworld a lot, in some ways that Im only just now realizing, such as the red hair of the angel Hintaya, whose personality somewhat resembles the Sprite character from the game ... the Undine is the first of the eight elemental spirits you meet, and for a good part of the game you keep on going back to her temple, so she's the most familiar of the eight as well. Even in the low resolution original game it's clear that the Undine is a female spirit, so that got me hooked on the idea of female elemental spirits. I've even had two recent dreams about Secret of Mana, so even today it's still in my mind.

the Undine and her six magic spells
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
Oh, and the book was https://www.amazon.com/Undine-Michael-O ... 0061007188 , which i never got around to reading. it looks like an erotic story but Im told it isnt.
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Image

hwhatting
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2315
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 2:49 am
Location: Bonn, Germany

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by hwhatting »

Sumelic wrote:The "Behind the Name" comments for the name "Undine" mention another unusual pronunciation, "oon-DEE-nee".
That seems to be an approximation of the German pronunciation, which is [ʊn'di:nə].

User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by linguoboy »

My brothers and I ended up with a lot of spelling pronunciations from D&D: lycanthrope and wyvern with /ih/, lamia with /ah/ or /a/, caecilia with /k/, etc. I think undine might have come with a pronunciation guide, since my natural instinct was to use /iy/ though /ay/ sounds acceptable as well.

User avatar
Zaarin
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1136
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2010 5:00 pm

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Zaarin »

I have /ɪ/ in wyvern, probably due to Dragon Age, and Wiktionary lists it as an acceptable pronunciation, though it gives /ai/ first.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

Mornche Geddick
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 370
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:22 pm
Location: UK

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Mornche Geddick »

For years I used to pronounce a certain sports brand to rhyme with "bike".

User avatar
kanejam
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 257
Joined: Sat Mar 30, 2013 1:16 pm
Location: New Zealand

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by kanejam »

Mornche Geddick wrote:For years I used to pronounce a certain sports brand to rhyme with "bike".
Reminds me of this. :P
If you cannot change your mind, are you sure you have one?

Here's a thread on Oscan.

User avatar
Ryusenshi
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 189
Joined: Sun Mar 12, 2017 3:31 am
Location: Montrouge, France

Re: Incorrect pronunciations you have (or have had) to unlea

Post by Ryusenshi »

Yeah, me too. Actually, I think in French it's always /najk/, even in adverts.

Post Reply