The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[zyxw59]

The only of those words I've ever heard of is omniscience, and I've never heard it pronounced any other way than /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/

[Salmoneus]

a) I don't immediately know, because it doesn't look like a word. Greek a- and Latin -science? And Greek a- is already a variable prefix in pronunciation, let alone Latin a-. Plus, it's basically a prefix plus a suffix, with no actual ix in between.

That said, on closer inspection I think it has to be /"eIsj@ns/. -science is one of those obscure suffixes that suggests an old or pseudo-old formation, hence a more naturalised pronunciation. Also, the a-science pronunciation would be misleading. Your version, with initial schwa, is possible, but unlikely, as that a- is mostly found in learned, pure Greek loans, and not in anything modern or naturalised. [eg, @-pocope, but a-symptote (not @-SIM-pto-tee)]. Initial TRAP is also possible (cf 'asymptote'), however. Not sure off hand why that seems wrong in this case. Possibly because the a- looks so prefixxy, and flat a- is more common in naturalised words.

"Omniscience" is /Qm"nIsj@ns/. The /sj/ cluster is coalesced into /S/ in many dialects, but not mine. Or, not regularly. [/sj/ can be [sj] or [S] in "omniscience", but "conscience" now only ever has /S/ for me (though some older speakers still have uncoalesced [sj])]. Omnscience can sometimes be encountered with the cluster extended into /si@/ instead. But if you hear someone say it as omni-science, they're just saying it wrong. Or they mean a different word ("omni-science" would mean 'all the sciences').

b) /gr{vi"oUl@ns/.

It couldn't be grave-olence. It could in theory be grave-yolence or grav-yolence, with stress on either the gra- or the -ole-. It doesn't really matter, though, because nobody has ever actually said this word. [I was vaguely aware of the word, because I've read a lot of stuff, and because its meaning is transparent. But I doubt I've ever heard it said.]

In these cases you can just pick a pronunciation that is valid according to the basic rules, and unless the person you're talking to is a professor of lexicography they'll just assume it's licit.

b) I think it can only be /g{st@/ in SSBE. gahhhsta sounds horribly pretentious. So, it might be that that's how Americans say it? I've confident I've only heard flat A in it. But admittedly, I'm not an entomologist or anything.

Similarly, and almost infinitely more commonly, "gastric" has flat A in SSBE.

In general, when you're dealing with a loanword that isn't either a) so old nobody knows it's a loanword, b) extremely learned, or c) so modern an so obviously loaned that you're likely to write it in Italics, stressed, first-syllable "a" in loanwords is usually flat in SSBE, though it's confusingly often broad in American.


EDIT: the flat/broad A thing is actually a bit of an issue for me, as deep layers of my speech derive from my mother's English, which is a middle-class, educated mid-century mild Irish, which includes hypercorrections in the direction of RP/SSBE. Hence, while in SSBE it's /plAst@/ but /pl{astIk/, my mother has, and I had before it was 50% taunted out of me, both /plAst@/ and /plAstIk/. Actually, I think I now have an incipient lexical split - the substance is often /plAstIk/, but the adjective meaning vaguely 'moldable' is almost always /pl{stIk/.

[Linguoboy]

I would just complat-out avoid the 1st word because even a correct pronunciation will sound awkward. Its like Oceania.

Is it even a word? It's not in the OED and the Wiktionary entry contains no citations.

[Travis B.]

ascience: I think I would pronounce it [ˈeʃɘ̃nts] but I am just guessing since I have never heard this word before.
omniscience: [ãːmˈnɘʃɘ̃nts]
graveolence: I think I would pronounce it [ˌkʁeːviːˈoːɯ̯ɘ̃nts] but I am just guessing since I have never hears this word before.
gaster: [ˈkɛsʲtʲʁ̩(ː)]~[ˈkɛsʲːʁ̩(ː)] (Again I am guessing, but in this case it is by analogy with other -aster words.)

[Vlürch]

I would just complat-out avoid the 1st word because even a correct pronunciation will sound awkward. Its like Oceania.

Welp, I'd always thought Oceania was /oʊ̯ʃieɪ̯nɪə/ until now... I guess in that mispronunciation I always thought it had the /eɪ̯/ would be stressed, although I honestly still can't comprehend the very concept of stress except in Romance languages where it's obvious as vowel lengthening and how in Russian some unstressed vowels are obviously reduced (and sometimes the pitch stuff in Japanese, but other times I'm completely clueless), and how secondary stress in Finnish is obvious even if I have no idea what it actually is, just that syllables with secondary stress are somehow different from unstressed syllables...

The only of those words I've ever heard of is omniscience, and I've never heard it pronounced any other way than /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/

Ugh...

"Omniscience" is /Qm"nIsj@ns/. The /sj/ cluster is coalesced into /S/ in many dialects, but not mine. Or, not regularly. [/sj/ can be [sj] or [S] in "omniscience", but "conscience" now only ever has /S/ for me (though some older speakers still have uncoalesced [sj])]. Omnscience can sometimes be encountered with the cluster extended into /si@/ instead. But if you hear someone say it as omni-science, they're just saying it wrong. Or they mean a different word ("omni-science" would mean 'all the sciences').

Now that you mention it, probably the most likely thing is that the pronunciation I've heard was /ɒmnɪsiəns/ and I'd simply incorrectly assumed that the /siə/ was /saɪ̯ə/.

a) I don't immediately know, because it doesn't look like a word. Greek a- and Latin -science? And Greek a- is already a variable prefix in pronunciation, let alone Latin a-. Plus, it's basically a prefix plus a suffix, with no actual ix in between.

That said, on closer inspection I think it has to be /"eIsj@ns/. -science is one of those obscure suffixes that suggests an old or pseudo-old formation, hence a more naturalised pronunciation. Also, the a-science pronunciation would be misleading. Your version, with initial schwa, is possible, but unlikely, as that a- is mostly found in learned, pure Greek loans, and not in anything modern or naturalised. [eg, @-pocope, but a-symptote (not @-SIM-pto-tee)]. Initial TRAP is also possible (cf 'asymptote'), however. Not sure off hand why that seems wrong in this case. Possibly because the a- looks so prefixxy, and flat a- is more common in naturalised words.

Interesting analysis, and I agree /æ/ there would sound wrong (although my reason could be interference from Finnish). I don't like /eɪsjəns/ because it sounds too much like "Asians" even if there are a lot of minor differences between them, since I couldn't really trust myself to not make them homophones if I wasn't paying attention. Considering what you said later, I think I'll go with the one with schwa in my head even if it's not the pronunciation most people would use since the only reason I even care is that I'm considering calling my next album Ascience: obviously it's in writing on the cover art and probably no one will ever say it out loud, so it shouldn't be that big a deal... and it being confusing is kind of better than it not being confusing, haha.

b) /gr{vi"oUl@ns/.

It couldn't be grave-olence. It could in theory be grave-yolence or grav-yolence, with stress on either the gra- or the -ole-.

gravy-lens

b) I think it can only be /g{st@/ in SSBE. gahhhsta sounds horribly pretentious. So, it might be that that's how Americans say it? I've confident I've only heard flat A in it. But admittedly, I'm not an entomologist or anything.

Do Americans really do that unless they're trying to imitate Brits? Huh. Anyway, I don't want to sound like a pretentious douche (or too American), so thanks, I'll force myself to accept /gæstə/ as natural.

Similarly, and almost infinitely more commonly, "gastric" has flat A in SSBE.

Ahhh, right. Holy shit I'm stupid, for some reason I didn't even think to connect the two even while repeating the different possible pronunciations to gauge which one sounded the most correct, including the one with /æ/, in spite of the meanings being obviously related as well... I swear, at times I feel like I'm literally whatever the auditory equivalent of dyslexic is. Or just dyslexic and stupid, I don't know.

In general, when you're dealing with a loanword that isn't either a) so old nobody knows it's a loanword, b) extremely learned, or c) so modern an so obviously loaned that you're likely to write it in Italics, stressed, first-syllable "a" in loanwords is usually flat in SSBE, though it's confusingly often broad in American.

Thanks, that should be a helpful rule if I can remember it.

Actually, I think I now have an incipient lexical split - the substance is often /plAstIk/, but the adjective meaning vaguely 'moldable' is almost always /pl{stIk/.

That's really interesting, is something like that common? And which do you go for as the default if it's not clear which meaning is intended, like for example if you saw the phrase "a plastic man" as the title of a chapter in a book but didn't yet know whether it was a man literally made of plastic or not? (I know that's not the best example, but it's the first that came to mind...)

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep, it kept gnawing at me that I left out something kind of important from my previous post: even though my PALM vowel is usually /ɑː/, palm itself definitely has a rounded-ish vowel, as do other words where there's "supposed" to be an /l/ that gets dropped, I think something like [ɔ̜ː~ɔː~ɒː~ɒ̜ː]. I guess it's a partial PALM-THOUGHT merger? Does that happen in any actual dialects of English, or where did I get it from?

Is it even a word? It's not in the OED and the Wiktionary entry contains no citations.

Well, the only result I can find on Google that actually says "ascience" is this weird ass Christian site but it has other words with a random "A" in them and it does make a lot more sense to assume "science" was meant...

However, there are a few results for ascient: a comment on a news article about the Vatican where it's at least more or less synonymous with pseudoscientific, but also a comment on The Economist that does seem to use it in a sense that's more or less "ignorant" or whatever.

It's the same with a few results that use ascientific, also seeming like it's used a synonym with pseudoscientific in the first result and this one, but this one seems to use it in a sense of "non-scientific" and "ignorant", although it's one that kind of smells like racist bullshit based on the quick glance I gave it... but still, it's used there.

So, ascience technically should be a word even if it's only barely used and probably doesn't have a consistent definition. Personally, I like obscure words a lot, so even if someone just invented it as a neologism and added it to Wiktionary, I think it's a cool and useful enough word... even if the Wiktionary entry sounds like an adjective, which also exists on Wiktionary as ascient but only links to the supposed noun. For me the intuitive meaning is "lack of knowledge or understanding", that seems the most logical and also the coolest.

[Pabappa]

1) ascience
1) /əsaɪ̯əns/ just feels right, but I'm not 100% sure if it's correct. I mean, according to Wiktionary omniscience is /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/ or /ɑmˈnɪʃəns/, which sounds totally wrong and I could swear I've only ever heard it as /ɒmnɪsaɪ̯əns/ and the only way I could say it... not that I'd have heard it many times or ever said it out loud, but still.

I think part of why this word feels so weird is that it's a Latin-Greek hybrid. An all-Greek coinage would be something like asophia, and while that could still have at least two different pronunciations, those pronunciations would fit into a well-established "a-....-ia" pattern that we recognize from words like amnesia, ataxia, arrythmia, etc.

Im not surprised it exists, though, because the a- prefix has been used on non-Greek words for a long time. My favorite example is aspiny, for an animal with no spines on its body. (Can't use "spineless" because we already use that for the other kind of spine.)

[Estav]

I would just complat-out avoid the 1st word because even a correct pronunciation will sound awkward. Its like Oceania.

Welp, I'd always thought Oceania was /oʊ̯ʃieɪ̯nɪə/ until now...

That pronunciation does exist.

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep, it kept gnawing at me that I left out something kind of important from my previous post: even though my PALM vowel is usually /ɑː/, palm itself definitely has a rounded-ish vowel, as do other words where there's "supposed" to be an /l/ that gets dropped, I think something like [ɔ̜ː~ɔː~ɒː~ɒ̜ː]. I guess it's a partial PALM-THOUGHT merger? Does that happen in any actual dialects of English, or where did I get it from?

Many American English speakers have the THOUGHT vowel in the word "palm"; sometimes this goes with including the consonant phoneme /l/. I don't know the history; one thing I've wondered is whether it's related to the fact that AmEng speakers also don't use the "PALM" (FAther/BRA) vowel in -alf words like half, calf (but they use TRAP rather than THOUGHT here). Using the thought vowel (without /l/) in -alm words was a feature of Irish English in the late 1700s according to John Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary of 1791 (p. ix), so it isn't necessarily American-English-specific (I don't know whether it is correct to characterize it as a "merger"). Walker says his description is based on Sheridan's, which I haven't looked at.

[Salmoneus]

Many American English speakers have the THOUGHT vowel in the word "palm"; sometimes this goes with including the consonant phoneme /l/. I don't know the history; one thing I've wondered is whether it's related to the fact that AmEng speakers also don't use the "PALM" (FAther/BRA) vowel in -alf words like half, calf (but they use TRAP rather than THOUGHT here). Using the thought vowel (without /l/) in -alm words was a feature of Irish English in the late 1700s according to John Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary of 1791 (p. ix), so it isn't necessarily American-English-specific (I don't know whether it is correct to characterize it as a "merger"). Walker says his description is based on Sheridan's, which I haven't looked at.

As I understand it, we start out with four phonemes: /a/, /a:/, /au/ (rare, in loanwords) and /a~/ (in loanwords).

Confused phoneme-birthing #1

The /au/ group becomes much bigger when /a/ becomes /au/ befor certain /lC/ clusters (but not others).

Some /a~/ then becomes /a:/ irregularly. /a:/ raises, ending up as /eI/ (hence "change", etc).

Remaining /a~/ merges with /au/. As a result, some words with /a~/ end up hypercorrected with intrusive /l/ (as /au/ was at this point mostly found before /l/).

To fill the gap caused by /a:/ raising, /au/ becomes /a:/. Notably, loanwords in this period with /a:/ end up in the AU set (eg "shawl", from Persian).

/a:/ irregularly shortens to /a/ before /n/ and /l/. The irregularity creates things like the Sander/Saunders doublet, and the variable pronunciation of "falcon".

/a:/ backs to /A:/ or the like.

Confused phoneme-birthing #2

To fill the new gap, /a/ lengthens to /a:/ before coda /l/ and /r/. In the latter case, it's quickly set in stone. But in the former case, the lengthening only sticks where /l/ is lost - before /m/, /f/ and /v/.

The words "laugh" and "laughter", which have /A:/, have irregular fronting to /a:/ (but note that "slaughter" does not). The word "balm", originally "baume", is given an etymological spelling and is irregularly fronted to /a:/ presumably as a spelling pronunciation (or, this may have been a bit earlier).

In America, however, /a:/ then shortens at once to /a/ before /f/ and /v/. [l-restoration is a later, and less extensive spelling pronunciation]

There's at least one irregular backing of /a:/ to /A:/, in the word "shawm" (originally "shalme" or the like) (alternatively, this may show that the lengthening actually began before the backing of earlier /a:/).

The word "father" lengthens to /a:/, as does the word "aunt" (the latter case may be influenced by unshortened dialectical forms that still have /A:/ at this stage?). In some dialects, "rather" might lengthen too.

/A:/ rounds and raises to /O:/. As a chain shift, /a:/ backs to /A:/ [i.e. this is the PALM and START vowel]

Confused phoneme-birthing #3

To fill the gap, /a/ lengthens to /a:/ in many contexts, but chiefly before coda nasals and voiceless fricatives.

This process gradually spreads, but partway through, in southeast England and in New England, the new /a:/ yet again backs, merging with /A:/. The exception is in the West Country, where /a:/ does something, but does not merge with /A:/

In the US, "tensing" continues to expand until in most of the country ALL /a/ is /a:/ and the distinction is lost.

In parts of the US where the distinction is still made, in Australia, and in southeast England with new /a:/, the "tense" /a:/ raises.

In southeast England in the late 20th century, this "bad-lad split" is reversed, or at least made subphonemic, though the details may vary with location.

[at the same time, to complete the picture: /Q/ also lengthens to /Q:/ in the same cases, which merges with /O:/, and in southeast England this change is also reversed. What's more, this change is hyper-reversed, and various /O:/ not from this split (i.e. particularly from original /au/) are also shortened and lowered to /Q/. As a result, original /au/ can have at least four different outcomes in SSBE, almost entirely irregularly: TRAP (salmon), BATH (balm, laugh), LOT (Walter, salt), THOUGHT (walk); while /a~/ can have three - FACE (chamber), BATH (chant), THOUGHT (gaunt), or four in parts of the US with a chant/aunt split. Hence "falcon" has four different pronunciations - as /fO:kn/ (no l-intrusion), /f{lkn/ (early l-intrustion, resulting in monophthongisation), /fO:lkn/ (late l-intrusion) or /fQlkn/ (late l-intrusion triggering CLOTH extirpation)]


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This is just an attempt to understand it; the exact chronologies and details are in many cases unknowable.

But in terms of PALM-rounding, I don't know about this, but it seems believable. The two explanations would be:
a) lm words may have participated in the original alC > aulC (>auC) process in some dialects, which would put these words with the /au/ words from the start;
or b) lm words, when they were /A:/, were a truly tiny class (four, five words?) before they were reinforced with new additions, and it's very believable that in some dialects they may have immediately merged with the old /au/ words, particularly if the latter were slower to round in that area.





EDIT: of course, one reason lots of Americans have PALM and THOUGHT merged is that they have a general FATHER-COT-CAUGHT triple merger.

[Pabappa]

Is it even a word? It's not in the OED and the Wiktionary entry contains no citations.

now that I look at it, the wiktionary entry seems to have been a neologism added by its creator. So there's no real attestation at all.

_________
To Vlürch:
Would you consider changing the name of the album to Agnosia?
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/agnosia has a much more solid use.

[Vijay]

Slechta

The last name of one of my music teachers in elementary school. She would start music class (and quiet us down) by singing, "Hello, everyone!" to which we had to sing back, "Hello, Ms. Slechta!" FWIR I sang and generally pronounced her last name as [səˈlɛt̪̚tə] (I'm pretty sure that for some odd reason, that was what it sounded like to me even when she pronounced it herself).

[Pabappa]

/slɛxtə/,.....It looks like it could be any of Irish, German, or polish, but all three of those use /x/ for ch.(edit: Oh German would have started with schl-.)

[Vijay]

Apparently, it's none of those and actually Czech. But yes, <ch> is also pronounced /x/ in Czech.

[Linguoboy]

/slɛxtə/,.....It looks like it could be any of Irish, German, or polish, but all three of those use /x/ for ch.(edit: Oh German would have started with schl-.)

High German. Low German names don’t follow the same rules.

[Travis B.]

/slɛxtə/,.....It looks like it could be any of Irish, German, or polish, but all three of those use /x/ for ch.(edit: Oh German would have started with schl-.)

High German. Low German names don’t follow the same rules.

If it were Low German I would expect Slechte though.

[Linguoboy]

/slɛxtə/,.....It looks like it could be any of Irish, German, or polish, but all three of those use /x/ for ch.(edit: Oh German would have started with schl-.)

High German. Low German names don’t follow the same rules.

If it were Low German I would expect Slechte though.

Why? (It’s an odd ending for a German surname to have regardless. It’s not somehow less odd if you assume a High German origin.)

[Pabappa]

i wrote the original post at almost 1am and really wasnt thinking clearly. if i had been paying more attention, German wouldnt have even occurred to me. i later looked up the name and found that its actually spelled Šlechta, which made me wonder if it was German after all, perhaps a variant of Schlächter. Even though I dont think Ive ever seen a name with -r borrowed into Slavic lose its /r/. ancestry.org says it is native Czech, but they dont trace the words back through thousands of years, and i havent bothered to look it up.

[Vijay]

The name might be strictly Czech, but the word comes from Middle High German according to the Czech version of Wiktionary (compare Geschlecht in modern German).

[Travis B.]

High German. Low German names don’t follow the same rules.

If it were Low German I would expect Slechte though.

Why? (It’s an odd ending for a German surname to have regardless. It’s not somehow less odd if you assume a High German origin.)

It is odd, indeed.

[Travis B.]

I have a question - are -ke names Low German names? I would presume that -ke is cognate with High German -chen.

[Linguoboy]

I have a question - are -ke names Low German names? I would presume that -ke is cognate with High German -chen.

As a rule, yes, though they can also be Germanicised versions of Slavic names with diminutive -ka.