Re: [quizbowl] Re: Speaking of pronunciation guides...

Andrew Feist <*feistatduke_at_feistatduke.yahoo.invalid*> · Tue, 23 Apr 2002 15:26:51 -0700 (PDT)

--- ZAMM_Phaedrus <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> --- In quizbowl_at_y..., "nephelococcygia"
> <dthorsle_at_u...> wrote:
> > I've been meaning to bring this to the attention
> of the list since I 
> > found it while editing MLK:
> > 
> > http://www3.sympatico.ca/untangle/aztecnames.html
> > 
> > Hopefully moderators will soon no longer fear the
> Aztecs.
> 
> I don't suppose anyone has websites or other easily
> (cheap) obtainable 
> with general rules of pronunciation for various
> languages? I'd 
> probably be most interested in Latin (with
> differentiation between 
> ancient and Church Latin), Greek, French, and
> German. 
> 
> P.S. If you're looking to buy a general lit
> reference, the Merriam 
> Webster Encyclopedia of Literature does come with
> pronunciation guides 
> and Amazon.com seems to have used copies listed for
> under ten bucks.
> 
How hard can German be?  It has fixed pronunciation
rules, after all.

Consonants:
Are consonants, you know, like English.  Except: c and
g are always hard; j is a y ("Ja!"); w is a v; z is a
"ts"; and consonants tend to get bitten off at the
ends of words (so d at the end of a word is more of a
t).  Two consonants together generally are not
pronounced together, but split into syllables, except
sch (= "sh") and ch (= gargle), and occasionally "ng".
 (I suppose there are others, but I can't think of
them right now.)  German has managed ways to get
things like a j sound (jungle -> Dschungel), but those
are generally only in clearly borrowed words.

Vowels:
a = "ah"
aa = "aaaah"
ae (a umlaut) = "ay"
au = "ow"
e = "eh"
ee = "ehh", verging on a long a
ei = "eye"
ie = "ee"
i = "ih" (before "ch" sometimes sounds like eek,
depending on dialect)
o = "oh"
oe (o umlaut) = hold your mouth like you're going to
say "ay", then (without changing anything) (try to)
say "oo".  (Go ahead, do it.)  If I had to write a
pronunciation guide, I'd use "oo", although "ay" is
also seen (cf. "Danke Schoen").
u = "oo"
ue (u umlaut) = "ewww"
y = kind of a cross between "ay" and "ee" (I can only
think of one German word that has a y in it, so I
never heard it much)

Stress almost always lands on the penultimate
syllable.

Examples:
Saarland (saahr' lant)
Goethe (goot' huh) or (gayt' he) MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT
(ger' tuh) (Note the syllable breaks between
consonants)
Ich bin ein Berliner (ihch (or eek) bin ayn behr-lin'
er)
Bundesausbildungsfrderungsgesetz
(boon'-des-ows-bihl'-doongs-foor'-dehr-oongs-geh-sehts)
with accents matching each word (bundes, ausbildungs,
frderungs, gesetz); since aus, ung, and ge are
affixes, stress falls where it would if the word
didn't have them.

HTH.

=====
Andrew Feist  http://www.math.duke.edu/~andrewf
The moving hand writes, and having written, smears the ink.

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