Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 10:00:54 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no>, Ollivier Robert <roberto@keltia.freenix.fr>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, Yvonne Lehey <yvonne@lemis.com> Subject: Re: Regulated names (was: Crazy Laws) Message-ID: <19981228100054.N12346@freebie.lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <36861F86.2761847A@uk.radan.com>; from Mark Ovens on Sun, Dec 27, 1998 at 11:52:38AM %2B0000 References: <4.1.19981224112052.05a31740@127.0.0.1> <4.1.19981224174155.03dd8670@127.0.0.1> <368378AB.969463E2@uk.radan.com> <4.1.19981225181200.05a201b0@mail.lariat.org> <xzpg1a3mzhe.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <19981226131644.I12346@freebie.lemis.com> <4.1.19981226104824.05822710@mail.lariat.org> <36854A89.B393D402@uk.radan.com> <19981227112355.B12346@freebie.lemis.com> <36861F86.2761847A@uk.radan.com>
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On Sunday, 27 December 1998 at 11:52:38 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: > > > Greg Lehey wrote: >> >> On Saturday, 26 December 1998 at 20:43:53 +0000, Mark Ovens wrote: >>> Brett Glass wrote: >>>> >>>> The funny thing is that when the English adopt a word from another >>>> language, they cannot seem to use it as-is. They seem to feel COMPELLED >>>> to shift at least the accented syllables and often the vowels. >>> >>> Whereas Americans simply _remove_ (mainly) vowls from English words :-) >> >> Not really. How do you pronounce ``laboratory''. Four syllables, >> right? The Americans stretch five out of it. Dropping vowels is more >> common elsewhere (as in French). > > Er Greg, note the ``:-)''. I was making a friendly jibe at the American > spelling of words like colour. Oh. That's not a vowel, that's a letter. They pronounce the second vowel much the same way as the English do: schwa. >>>> For example, I was recently asked in an English resatuarant if I'd like a >>>> piece of "GA-teau." >>> >>> I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I think the English >>> pronounciation of "gateau" is identical to the origianal French. >> >> It's difficult to know if you're talking about the same pronunciation >> that we are. As others observe, there's a general tendency in English >> to place the accent on the wrong syllable. In addition, I've often >> heard things like ``would you like some Black Forest gæteau'' in >> England, which is doubly funny: >> >> 1. It's a tart, not a gâteau. >> 2. The æ sound (as in `at') is completely wrong. > > But what is the distinction between a French word and an English word of > French origin? A good question. Depends on who you ask. >> On the whole, even educated people here perpetuate the same mistakes >> that the British make. Even those who get French vowels more or less >> right will consistently put the accent on the wrong syllable, which I >> find a great source of amusement (my wife, Yvonne, is almost always >> mispronounced). > > What is the correct pronounciation of Yvonne? Damn, I wish I had phonetic symbols here. The Y is a long pure I (which some people represent `ee'), the o is a short pure o (as in English `off'; I don't think the Americans use this sound). The important thing is that the accent is on the second (last) syllable. >> But in general most languages tend to change the accents of foreign >> borrowings, and English is a good example. Note the opposite tendency >> in the US: people automatically place the accent on foreign words on >> the *last* syllable, which in general is true for French only. >> >>> Partly of course this comes about because of sounds in one language >>> not existing in another and therefore the majority of the population >>> _can't_ pronounce them properly. >> >> I'd consider this a completely unrelated effect. > > I disagree. Consider the Spanish dish Paella. How do you pronounce > it?. I personally pronounce it the Spanish way, pa-éllya. > We almost universally say ``Pie-ella'' which is completely wrong, but > the Spanish sound ``ll'' doesn't exist in English Sure it does. It's the sound in `million'. Where did your Spanish people come from? It's the Welsh `ll' that's unpronounceable. > and is extremely difficult to say correctly, so you end up with a > totally different pronounciation in English. The real problem with `paella' is that they don't pronounce it this way in America. It might be close in Mexico, but most Mexicans will say `pa-éya' (missing out the ll altogether). Further down, this sound degenerates into a j (as the s in `pleasure'). In Argentina, it's `pa-éja'. Note that there's no significant change in the vowels here. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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