ORLAPUBS P. L80: PRONOUNCING FOREIGN WORDS IN ENGLISH

Much ignorance prevails about pronouncing foreign words; announcers on the media make hilarious mistakes with great frequency. A little education is necessary. (See also http://www.orlapubs.com/ORLAPUBS-L/L17.html.)

I. There are certain customs for pronouncing classical Greek and Latin terms in English. (Other usages prevail for modern Greek and the way Italians, Germans, the French, the Spanish, and the Portuguese pronounce Latin.)

II. A general rule concerns "j": Avoid the pronunciation like "z" in azure except in French and Portuguese words. In the Germanic and Slavic languages, "j" is similar to our "y." In Chinese and most other languages, "j" is like English "j." It's BeiJing, not BeiZHing, though "zh" in Chinese is another kind of "j." (Chinese and Portuguese "x" are close to English "sh.") Newscasters sound silly when the say the latter. It's adaJo, not adazhio, since Italian "gi" is like English "j."

III. Classical Greek names like Orpheus follow the rule of treating "eu" like English "ew." Thus, Orpheus and Morpheus rhyme with the noun refuse. Biblical and Modern Greek pronounce(d) "eu" as "ev" before vowels and certain consonants, and as "ef" before other consonants. Classical Greek "g" is usually written as "n" before "k,g" but not usually before "m," where it was also like our "ng."

IV. The vowels cause a lot of trouble. The main problems are with Greek eta and Latin "i." It must be understood that Anglo-Saxon took over the Latin sounds, except that the Latin "e" (as in speck) for æ and oe were treated like Anglo-Saxon long-e. This vowel took the "ee" sound in English in a vowel shift exactly the way Greek eta did; cf. creed, where it is even spelled "ee.". However the reflex of long-e in English got replaced by the reflex of short-e under certain conditions--before two or more syllables (except when in a word-initial syllable before a stressed nucleus, as in enumerate, reality) Cf. P(o)enal with penalty. This happened before most consonant clusters other than pr, tr, and kr. Generally, a vowel has the reflex of the long vowel of Middle English before a consonant plus unstressed "i" and another vowel, as in tedious and menial. Before a stressed vowel, the "ee" sound prevails, as in diarhhea and velleity. Certain prefixes depend on the "boundary" between them: We do not pronounce rep~resent like "re--present" nor present(ation) with an inital pree- (unless someone thinks there is a sentation and a pre-sentation); then senses are as different as their pronunciations. Pref~erence and many other such words are not pre-ference. Similarly repetition does not begin with ree. To syllabize these words correctl (dividing them at the end of a line of writing), we must know the status of the prefix.

V. "I" is more often mispronounced; and it works the opposite way from "e" and "a" before a consonant plus unstressed "i" and another vowel, as in initial and initiate, competition, attrition, etc. Practicioner used to be "practitioner." WIth "ti" compare "ci" in vicious (contrast vice) and "ssi" in remission (contrast remit).. Otherwise, it is like the foregoing. Examples of the reflex of the old long vowel are heard before another vowel, as in viaduct, via, pariah, prior, pious and piety (contrast pity), and in satiety. We hear the "eye" sound in hybris and hybrid (two forms of the same Greek word). Classical Greek ei and ou were as in English weigh and road, but they were taken over by Latin after they had become like the vowels in see and soup in the very different pronunciation of Hellenistic (and Biblical) Greek. Hence, we have the "eye" sound in peripeteia (and in old-fashioned pronunciations of Maria and Sophia) and the "ou" sound in nous (like noose, but when I was young still pronounced to rhyme with mouse--for the same reason that earlier hus and mus have become house and mouse). It must be said that, for historical reasons, -ine varies between what is usual in divine and what is usual in marine. We hear both in Constantine and other names. Sometimes a fruit or a grape will have one pronounciation and the name th'other. Tangerine and valentine are stable but clementine varies. The Latin plurals -i and -ae are like eye (alumni) and ee (alumnae) in English. This is the result of the same vowel-shift that changed hus to house and the vowel in ride from and "ee" sound to the vowels found in different kinds of English today. By the way, there is no word "disect"; there are dissect and bisect.

VI. There is a bit of variation in rare words (etiolate and even consortium) for the pronunciation of "ti" before a vowel, but the proper pronunciation is "sh" as in motion, initial, etc. Many new chemicals end in -tium; this should be like "shum." Cf. "shun" at the end of motion.

Gardeners and botanists who have trouble with Latin names should learn to use analogies. Take Wodyetia, a beautiful palm species: Assuming an initial "V" in English, to pronounce the -etia, one should seek any everyday word as a model--the name Lucretia if one knows it, or a word like completion or discretion or facetious have //t// plus unstressed "i" plus a vowel . . . and then end Wodyetia with "eesha." It is not hard to learn how to work with such analo-gies. One gets better at it with practice. One has got to be aware of special environments; when unstressed -tia follows -s-, //t// has a sound like "ch" rather than "sh"--as in bestial and question.

CAUTION: Data, media, bacteria, etc. are plurals in the Classical languages, though many think they are singulars. It is generally better to say milleniums than millenia. While alumni and alumnae are established in academic circles, English plurals are to be preferred except in words ending in -is, when half-stressed -es is generally hear for the plural; e.g. synthesis : syntheses. I would say thesises. Many people do not realize that fourth-declension Latin nouns like status, apparatus, and various others have plurals in -us (with long-u) in Latin; and the plural of neuters like corpus and genus have the plurals corpora and genera respectively. Beware. Using English plurals will avoid making you look uneducated.

VII. Note that "ui" (also "oui" in Louisiana) is pronounced like "oo" in words other than recent foreign borrowings like bruin and words in which "u" and "i" belong to different syllables in cognates--e.g. ruinous (cf. ruin), fortuitous, circuitous (see circuit below), and fluidity (cf. fluid). as well as words in which -(e)y is appended to "oo" or "ou"--e.g. phooey, flooey, Louie. Note suit, bruise, bruit, fruit, recruit, nuisance, Cruickshank--all with "oo" for "ui" spellings. (Scots spell "oo" as "ui" to keep it distinct from other kinds of English having "ow" from older long-i; e.g. huis; Cruickshank is so written because crook, book, and cook rhyme with spook in Scottish English.) Contrast dissyllabic Louis and Louisville (no "s"!) with "oo" in Louisiana. Guide and guild have got no "u" in the pronunciation, and the same is true of nstressed "ui" in circuit, biscuit, and conduit: They end the same way as do basket and credit, respectively. Muir and build respectively rhyme with fewer and guild.

VIII. In the Southern States and sometimes elsewhere, "l" is not dropped in normal tempos before "y" plus an unstressed vowel. Billion is biyun, Orleans is Oryuns, William is Wiyum, etc. (The gulped "l" sounds all right in bill, mill, and will but is very unpleasing to many ears in billion, million, and William. Some announcers on the media have apparently been trained to avoid it.)

IX. Some media announcers seem unaware that when we use certain adjectives ending in -(m)ent as verbs, we stress that final syllable: absént, frequént, fragmént.

Details on pronunciation are found in the writers's English phonetic transcription (SIL and UTA, 1985). Pending a new edition, corrigenda can be found at (the address is case-sensitive) http://www.orlapubs.com/ORLAPUBS-L/L23.html .