The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[anteallach]

How do you pronounce hydrogen? Especially, what is the first vowel in it, and are the first two syllables the same as in hydroelectric or hydroponic or like?

I have [ˈɦɑi̯d͡ʒʷɻʷəd͡ʒən], and as far as I can remember everyone I know has something similar to that. (Which is a fairly big sample, given that I’ve been doing chemistry for some time now.) The first two syllables are precisely the same as those in hydroelectric, hydroponic etc.

Likewise: PRICE in the first syllable and schwa in the second, though for me hydroelectric has GOAT in the second syllable. I suspect Travis is mostly asking about which way the first vowel goes among people who have a “Canadian Raising” split in PRICE, and I don’t have such a split or any real intuition about one.

[bradrn]

Likewise: PRICE in the first syllable and schwa in the second, though for me hydroelectric has GOAT in the second syllable.

Good point; you are quite correct. I have GOAT in hydroelectric too.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

How do you pronounce hydrogen? Especially, what is the first vowel in it, and are the first two syllables the same as in hydroelectric or hydroponic or like?

hydrogen : ['haːɪ̯.d͡͡ʒɹʷə.d͡͡ʒə̃n~'haːɪ̯.d͡͡ʒɹʷə.d͡͡ʒɪ̃n]
hydroelectric: [ˌhaːɪ̯.d͡͡ʒɹʷɵʊ̯.(w)ə'lɛk̚.tʃɺʷɪk̚~ˌhaːɪ̯.d͡͡ʒɹʷɵʊ̯.(w)ɪ'lɛk̚.tʃɺʷɪk̚
hydroponic: [ˌhaːɪ̯.d͡͡ʒɹʷə.'pʰɑ̃ː.nɪk̚]

I find I have price, comma, and a sort of reduced vowel variant between kit and comma in hydrogen.
The comma vowel is replaced by the more historical goat vowel in hydroelectric, but not hydroponic.
The lengthening of the first element of the diphthong is allophonic, triggered by voiced consonants following; I don't have Canadian Raising; the [ɪ̯] is also fairly weakly articulated in my price vowel; the first element is also certainly [a] rather than [ɑ].
My lot/cloth, thought, and palm vowels are all a very low, very back [ɑ] that has some slight rounding, except the star vowel is a bit further forward and totally unrounded.

[Richard W]

Broadly [ˈhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒrəd͡ʒən] or [ˈhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒrəˌd͡ʒen], the latter chiefly in names of compounds.

Conversely, hydroelectric is more often [ˌhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒrə͜ʊɪˈlekt͜ʃrɪk] or [ˌhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒroɪˈlekt͜ʃrɪk] than [ˌhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒrəɪˈlekt͜ʃrɪk], while hydroponic is more often [ˌhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒrəˈpʰɒnɪk] than [ˌhɑ͜ɪd͡ʒrə͜ʊˈpʰɒnɪk].

I've only marked the most significant allophones and have not attempted to characterise the rhotic. To avoid confusion, I've marked diphthongs with slurs.

[Travis B.]

I have [ˈhəːe̯tɕʁ̩ˤːtʃɘ̃(ː)n] corresponding to /ˈhəɪdʒərdʒən/ for hydrogen (compare with [ˈnəe̯tɕʁ̩ˤːtʃɘ̃(ː)n] corresponding to /ˈnəɪtʃərdʒən/ for nitrogen). For the hydro- in hydroelectric and hydroponic I have [ˈhaːe̯tʃɻʁo̞(ː)(w)]~[ˈhaːe̯tʃɻʁə(ː)] corresponding to /ˈhaɪdʒroʊ/.

What I was interested in finding out was whether anyone else had raising of PRICE in hydrogen and/or a shift of /roʊ/~/rə/ to syllabic /r/ or, if non-rhotic, [ə] in the same.

(Note that [ɻʁ] here is coarticulated at postalveolar and uvular POA's - I could not get the X-SAMPA-IPA converter I was using to render a tie for it.)

[Richard W]

Sorry to semi-hijack this, as I suspect very few of us ever pronounce it. How do you pronounce the name of the Welsh village of Acrefair? If you have distinct English and Welsh pronunciations, please tell me them both. FWIW, my English pronunciation, literally part of my mother tongue, rhymes the last part with English mire. My attempt at a Welsh pronunciation is probably artificial rather than picked up from my native Welsh-speaking grandfather.

I'm asking because the transcription and audio at the Wikipedia page don't seem to be consistent.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I have never pronounce the word before, but my reading pronunciation would be ['æ.kɹɪˌfɛːɹ].

[Travis B.]

Sorry to semi-hijack this, as I suspect very few of us ever pronounce it. How do you pronounce the name of the Welsh village of Acrefair? If you have distinct English and Welsh pronunciations, please tell me them both. FWIW, my English pronunciation, literally part of my mother tongue, rhymes the last part with English mire. My attempt at a Welsh pronunciation is probably artificial rather than picked up from my native Welsh-speaking grandfather.

I'm asking because the transcription and audio at the Wikipedia page don't seem to be consistent.

So you think that few of us have native pronunciations of hydrogen, yet you're asking about native pronunciations of an obscure Welsh village (that I highly doubt that any of us whom have grown up outside of Wales have)? It is like if I asked, for the nth time, how people pronounce Oconomowoc, for shits and giggles, because the native pronunciation is completely non-obvious from the spelling.

[Travis B.]

I have never pronounce the word before, but my reading pronunciation would be ['æ.kɹɪˌfɛːɹ].

My almost-certainly-wrong spelling pronunciation would be [ˈe̞kʁ̩ˤˌfɛ(ː)ʁˤ]

[Ryusenshi]

So you think that few of us have native pronunciations of hydrogen, yet you're asking about native pronunciations of an obscure Welsh village (that I highly doubt that any of us whom have grown up outside of Wales have)?

I think he meant that few of us have a native pronunciation of Acrefair, which is why it felt like a hijack.

I would have guessed /ˈeɪkə(r)ˌfɛə(r)/.

[anteallach]

When I first saw it written down (some years ago) I saw it as the English words acre and fair before realising that it was Welsh. Now I think I would say /akrɛˈvaɪə(r)/ (with the end indeed rhyming with mire; it's the same fair as in the very common Llanfair) but I don't know the place at all so can't really comment.

Is your objection that the transcription is Welsh but that the recording is English?

[anteallach]

Along similarish lines, how would people pronounce Acharacle (without looking it up)? This is a village in the Scottish Highlands; unlike Acrefair this is actually an English spelling, an anglicisation of a Gaelic name. I'll give a hint: this is Scotland, so the ch should not be assumed to be /tʃ/.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Along similarish lines, how would people pronounce Acharacle (without looking it up)? This is a village in the Scottish Highlands; unlike Acrefair this is actually an English spelling, an anglicisation of a Gaelic name. I'll give a hint: this is Scotland, so the ch should not be assumed to be /tʃ/.

Even without the hint, my instinct was [ə'kʰɛː.ɹə.kʰəɫ].

[Travis B.]

I have never pronounce the word before, but my reading pronunciation would be ['æ.kɹɪˌfɛːɹ].

My almost-certainly-wrong spelling pronunciation would be [ˈe̞kʁ̩ˤˌfɛ(ː)ʁˤ]

My highly anglicized faux-Welsh pronunciation would be [ˈakʁˤəːˌvəːe̯ʁ̩ˤ(ː)], for record.

[Travis B.]

Along similarish lines, how would people pronounce Acharacle (without looking it up)? This is a village in the Scottish Highlands; unlike Acrefair this is actually an English spelling, an anglicisation of a Gaelic name. I'll give a hint: this is Scotland, so the ch should not be assumed to be /tʃ/.

[aˈxɑːʁˤəkɯ(ː)]

[Richard W]

Is your objection that the transcription is Welsh but that the recording is English?

That may indeed be the cause of the disconcerting discrepancy.

[Richard W]

Along similarish lines, how would people pronounce Acharacle (without looking it up)?

I'd go for /ˌækəˈreɪkəl/. I just can't bring myself to fricativise the first consonant. From its geographical location, I want the stress in the second part of the word.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Are any of these even close to correct?

[anteallach]

Are any of these even close to correct?

Yours and Travis's aren't bad, actually. The Gaelic is Àth Tharracail (or possibly Tharracaill, as in the sign in the photo in the next link); Gaelic has first syllable stress and <th> is /h/, and AIUI the local English form is /əˈharəkəl/. (See here, and the caption.)

I said "without looking it up", but looking it up might not actually have been that helpful. Wikipedia doesn't give a pronunciation (though it does give the Gaelic form, which gives a big clue), and typing 'acharacle pronunciation' into Google gives a version with the third syllable stressed, the top linked video also stresses the third syllable, and also gives https://www.howtopronounce.com/acharacle, which has three recordings, the third of which is (according to my understanding) correct but is a rather poor quality recording, the first of which has first syllable stress, and the second of which is ridiculous.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Is that /a/ the "trap" vowel or the "palm" vowel? I have the marry-merry-Mary merger, so my trap and face-vowels in that context will both be [ɛː]. I also don't idiolectally have [x], so /k/ might be the expected form for me to have (though with the palm-vowel, it would be [ə'kʰɑː.ɹə.kʰəɫ]).