Tony Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Can you give us linguistically challenged Americans a phonetic
rendition of your name?
It's not easy to describe because of the phonems and concepts not
present in the English language. You'll probably regret having asked.
:-)
HUR-voh-yeh would be the closest approximation you can get without
leaving the constraints of English. More specifically:
* There are three syllables, with the accent being on the first one,
not on the second, which comes natural to most English speakers.
It's pronounced as one word, the dashes in hur-voh-yeh are just to
make the syllables stand out.
* The oh in voh is fairly short, and sounds like how Brits
pronounce o in dog. (So it's not dawg:-)) I'm not sure if
this phonem exists in American English.
* The eh in yeh is fairly short and sounds like the e in elm,
not like e in default.
* HUR is the loosest approximation, and arguably the hardest one to
get right. The Croatian r is as a rolling r, like in Italian or
Spanish. The h is clearly heard, think of Shaw's Henry Higgins.
If you're wondering how three consonants h+r+v coexist next to each
other, the answer is that the (rolling) r between two consonants
takes the role of a vowel. I'm not sure if that makes sense to you,
but I guess the truth is that Slavic people are in general much more
comfortable with adjacent consonants than Anglo-Saxons. I noticed
that Americans have a problem pronouncing GNU with a non-silent
g, and often help themselves by saying guh-noo, which sounds
strange to me. For me, saying gnu is as natural as saying
glove.
Pronuncing my name is an undertaking for most people outside my
country, but it's not impossible. I've known Americans with good ear
for languages who have gotten it right almost at once. But people are
usually *very* confused when they hear it, and probably even more
confused when they see it in writing. As you may imagine, living in
Munich for two years has taught me to respond to even the most
distorted variants.
I really ought to get a cheap $2 microphone in the store and record
it. :-)
