The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Ryusenshi]

starting to (when pronounced like a single word)

[stɑˑʔn̩ə]

[mèþru]

I thought German had a similar length distinction on vowels being marked by double consonants like in English, just with actual vowel length rather than quality distinctions. Under that assumption, I thought <ck> was Standard German for shortening a vowel.

[jal]

I thought German had a similar length distinction on vowels being marked by double consonants like in English, just with actual vowel length rather than quality distinctions. Under that assumption, I thought <ck> was Standard German for shortening a vowel.

German doesn't have actual vowel length afaik, and does have quality distinctions. This is an interesting Quora discussion that is about <ck> in English, German and Dutch.


JAL

[Linguoboy]

I thought German had a similar length distinction on vowels being marked by double consonants like in English, just with actual vowel length rather than quality distinctions. Under that assumption, I thought <ck> was Standard German for shortening a vowel.

German doesn't have actual vowel length afaik

It does, actually. The duration of German long vowels in stressed position is 40-50% longer than the duration of German short vowels in the same environment (depending on the exact vowel and the type of segment which follows).

Lax vowels are always short in German but short vowels are not always lax thanks to the existence of loanwords. Since the short tense vowels are always unstressed, the most elegant way to handle this is to make the fundamental distinction one of length, treat phonetic tenseness as a correlation of length, and treat actual phonetic length as something which is lost in unstressed position. (Of course this analysis only works seamlessly for those varieties without and [ɛ] vs [ɛː] contrast in stressed position.)

[Ryusenshi]

I thought German had a similar length distinction on vowels being marked by double consonants like in English, just with actual vowel length rather than quality distinctions. Under that assumption, I thought <ck> was Standard German for shortening a vowel.

It is in modern German, but maybe the orthographic rules have changed? It's far from uncommon for place names to retain obsolete spelling conventions (only to later have a spelling pronunciation take over).

Of course this analysis only works seamlessly for those varieties without and [ɛ] vs [ɛː] contrast in stressed position.

AFAIK, this means most of them. The contrast between [eː] and [ɛː] is somewhat artificial, and only maintained in Standard German because of the spelling.

[jal]

Dutch has phonemic length only in loans (e.g. <beige> [bE:Z@]), otherwise it's tense/lax and lengthening before r (for some vowels).


JAL

[Travis B.]

Dutch has phonemic length only in loans (e.g. <beige> [bE:Z@]), otherwise it's tense/lax and lengthening before r (for some vowels).

How did Dutch end up with a phonemic long vowel in beige when, from what it seems, French never had one in that word in the first place?

[Estav]

Dutch has phonemic length only in loans (e.g. <beige> [bE:Z@]), otherwise it's tense/lax and lengthening before r (for some vowels).

How did Dutch end up with a phonemic long vowel in beige when, from what it seems, French never had one in that word in the first place?

Many varieties of French without phonemic vowel length have phonetic lengthening of vowels before word-final /Z/.

I don't know whether beige has a phonemically long vowel in any variety of French, but the varieties that retain phonemic vowel length often have long vowels in contexts other than circumflexed vowels or vowels before the letter "s" or the sound /z/ (which were the contexts where I as a French second-language learner was most familiar with the possibility of vowel length, since these contexts condition the more commonly taught quality distinctions between /ɔ/ and /o/ or /a/ and /ɑ/). If I remember correctly, vowel length may result from compensatory lengthening in words that originally ended in schwa (although the specific examples that I know of from Belgian French all have vowels directly before the e, not separated by a consonant as in beige). I'm not sure, but in some cases certain diphthongs might also have developed regularly to long vowels (that seems to be usual for "au", but I don't know what the patterns are for "ai" and "ei"). Different varieties of French have different distributions of long vowels: for example, in Quebec French, unlike in Belgian French, long vowels do not occur word-finally. A French Stack Exchange question "Pronunciation of “freiner”" has an answer written by a Belgian French speaker who apparently pronounces that word with a long vowel.

[bbbosborne]

conlang
Dewey

[anteallach]

conlang
Dewey

[ˈkʰɔnlaŋ(g)] (the [g] is variably present, most likely before a vowel and least likely before a stop)
[ˈdʒ̺ʉːɪ] (or [ˈdʒ̺ʉːi] before a vowel)

[Zaarin]

conlang [gɫɒsɵˈpʰiə] :p (more seriously: [ˈkʰɑnɫeŋ]--I'm not too sure about the second vowel though: phonemically it's /ei/, but /ei/ monophthongizes and tenses before /ŋ/, but [e] might be too tense...)
Dewey [ˈdu(w)i]

[Travis B.]

conlang: [ ˈkʰãː(n)ˌʟ̞ẽ(ː)ŋ]~[ˈkʰãː(n)ˌɰẽ(ː)ŋ]
Dewey: [ˈtʲʉ̯uːwi(ː)]

[mèþru]

[ˈkʰɑˑn.ɫeɪ̯ŋᶢ]
[ˈduˑ.ɥ̆i]
I drag out the first vowel in these words longer than for most short vowels, so I transcribed them as half-long

[bbbosborne]

aural
oral

[Travis B.]

aural
oral

These are homophones as [ˈɔːʁʷʊ(ː)] for me.

[zyxw59]

aural: /ˈɑɹəl/ (same vowel as "are")
oral: /ˈɔrəl/ (same vowel as "ore")

[Nortaneous]

Polish, well .... It's complicated, just ask how you say it and accept it. Wojciechowicz is my personal favorite.

There is an American historical figure named Thaddeus Kosciusko, after whom a few things are named. As far as I know, no two such things have the same pronunciation. (/ˌkɑsɨjˈʌskəw/, /ˌkɑskɨjˈʌskəw/, /kəˈʃuwskəw/) Sometimes different sources even list different pronunciations for the same one.

[dhok]

['ɒ:ɰɐɫ] for both.

[anteallach]

['ɒ:ɰɐɫ] for both.

Is that the same vowel as in orange, moral, Florida etc.? (All of those usually have LOT in BrE.)

For me aural has NORTH, [ɔː] with relatively weak lip rounding, and oral has FORCE, [oə] with rather stronger lip rounding.

[Travis B.]

I can make a distinction between the two, with aural as [ˈɒːʁʷʊ(ː)] and oral as [ˈɔːʁʷʊ(ː)], but this is artificial and not natural in the variety here.