SC - OT -Pronounciation (was Re: SC - Danish cookbook)

[Huette von Ahrens]

- --- Nanna_Rögnvaldardóttir <nannar at isholf.is> wrote:

> Well, no, it is not quite as easy as that. My
> British ex-son in law never
> even came close to a correct pronounciation even
> though he really tried.
> Some time ago, I was attempting to explain to an
> American how to pronounce
> the name and asked my big brother the professor for
> help. This is what I got
> from him:
> 
> "If the person you want to explain the
> pronounciation to knows something
> about phonetics, you might try this
> explanation:Unvoiced palatal
> fricative/approximant (hj)-low back unrounded vowel
> (a) -unvoiced lateral
> sonorant (l) - unvoiced unaspirated alveolar stop
> (t) -high front unrounded
> lax vowel (i). In the IPA-system it would be
> [çaldI], except you would need
> to draw a small circle under the l and d to indicate
> it is unvoiced.
> 
> If you are attempting to explain the pronounciation
> to someone who knows
> nothing about phonetics you are in trouble, because
> as you know some of the
> sounds do not exist in English. You could try to say
> that the initial sound
> is not unlike German "ich".The unvoiced L, however,
> is not found in any
> language an American is likely to know."

Nanna,

While I am no linguistics major, I think that your
brother doesn't know English very well.  English is
such a conglomeration of so many languages, it has
so many different words, spellings of words, meanings
of words and pronunciations of words that nothing is
beyond the ken of an educated English speaker.  There
are so many different sounds too in English.

As for unvoiced L's, English has them: could
(k[schwa]d),would, should. [Unfortunately, I have no
access to accent marks]

I also do not like your brother's insult to Americans.
We Americans are a cosmopolitan people.  America is
made up of more cultures and languages then any other
country in the world.  We are a nation of immigrants
who have brought their cultures with them and
intermixed them together to make a rich, varigated
stew.  We have people from every country in the world
adding to the splendure of the American experience.
I live in Los Angeles.  I may not speak a ton of
languages, but I can hear a hundred different
languages
and dialects every day.  Can you say that about
Iceland?

If I have read the easier version of your explanation
correctly, then your son's name should be pronounced
hj = ch as in Hanukah: a = schwa, as is sat, 
but I am confused about the i, whether it should be
i as in it or i as in mine or i as in fir.  If I could
hear it a couple to times, I would be able to
pronounce it correctly.

Huette
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