Hoi,
More than 125 Italian politicians have now their own soundfile. They can be found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_politician More than 2500 words pronounced in Dutch can be found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Dutch_pronunciation
The idea is that you cannot reliably pronounce a word as it it should be pronounced just by seeing the characters when the word originated from another language. By making these resources available, it is clear how they should be pronounced in the original language. Having pronunciations available is important because they help people study a language and, the wikipedia articles are a great resource to learn a language; they are short, cover a subject well and many of the related words related to a subject can be found in the article.
We are thinking of what (sound) resources would be popular as well.. Soccer stars like Ruud Gullit ?? We have volunteers that may pronounce them in Italian, German or Dutch.
We would REALLY like to have pronunciations for soccer stars because the pronunciations of these gentlemen is often really bad. It would be a fun project to have.
Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The idea is that you cannot reliably pronounce a word as it it should be pronounced just by seeing the characters when the word originated from another language. By making these resources available, it is clear how they should be pronounced in the original language. Having pronunciations available is important because they help people study a language and, the wikipedia articles are a great resource to learn a language; they are short, cover a subject well and many of the related words related to a subject can be found in the article.
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
- d.
On Tuesday, March 22, 2005 5:00 PM, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
Yes, but only /mine/ will be correct. ;-)
Actually, cataloguing them as "RP", "RRP", "Brummie", "Ilkely", &c. would probably be beneficial for our article on said accents.
Swings and roundabouts. :-)
Yours,
James D. Forrester wrote:
On Tuesday, March 22, 2005 5:00 PM, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
Yes, but only /mine/ will be correct. ;-)
Actually, cataloguing them as "RP", "RRP", "Brummie", "Ilkely", &c. would probably be beneficial for our article on said accents.
Swings and roundabouts. :-)
Yours,
Hoi, There is only one authorotive way of pronouncing a name and that is how it is pronounced by the person himself. In the mean time I would want a standard way of pronouncing a name. So I would go for a BBC kinda pronouniation for British football stars. The aim of this excercise is to have words pronounced for people who do not speak the language. The intention is not to have it in all dialects. There would be not much point to it.
PS I am producing a list of Dutch socces starts.. Half of them I do not know, I just know how to pronounce it. :)
Thanks, GerardM
On Tuesday, March 22, 2005 6:10 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
James D. Forrester wrote:
On Tuesday, March 22, 2005 5:00 PM, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
Yes, but only /mine/ will be correct. ;-)
Actually, cataloguing them as "RP", "RRP", "Brummie", "Ilkely", &c. would probably be beneficial for our article on said accents.
Swings and roundabouts. :-)
There is only one authorotive way of pronouncing a name and that is how it is pronounced by the person himself. In the mean time I would want a standard way of pronouncing a name. So I would go for a BBC kinda pronouniation for British football stars. The aim of this excercise is to have words pronounced for people who do not speak the language. The intention is not to have it in all dialects. There would be not much point to it.
Well, my voice when I'm speaking deliberately is probably as close to RP as you are likely to get (slight North/East London twinge when I drop into the vernacular, I suppose ;-). Maybe I should get a microphone...
Yes, the way someone pronounces their own name is probably definitive, and place names for those that live there (hmm; not sure that we really want people to learn to say "Nuu-ka-sel" ;-)), though that has issues, too (*cough* Althrop *cough*), but what about other, general words?
PS I am producing a list of Dutch socces starts.. Half of them I do not know, I just know how to pronounce it. :)
Sounds great. Keep up the good work. :-)
Yours,
David Gerard wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The idea is that you cannot reliably pronounce a word as it it should be pronounced just by seeing the characters when the word originated from another language. By making these resources available, it is clear how they should be pronounced in the original language. Having pronunciations available is important because they help people study a language and, the wikipedia articles are a great resource to learn a language; they are short, cover a subject well and many of the related words related to a subject can be found in the article.
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
It used to be said that an experts in English could get to within 50 miles of a person's birthplace just by listening to the dialect. Dunno if that's still true in this more mobile age. In any case, supplying the life background of the speaker is critical, just like identifying the location of a picture, and I hope everybody is doing that for uploaded pronunciations.
Stan
On Tue, 22 Mar 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:
It used to be said that an experts in English could get to within 50 miles of a person's birthplace just by listening to the dialect. Dunno if that's still true in this more mobile age.
Sounds quite plausible. I can get down to less then 10km in my area, and it's even more specific in southern italy.
Alfio
Stan Shebs wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The idea is that you cannot reliably pronounce a word as it it should be pronounced just by seeing the characters when the word originated from another language. By making these resources available, it is clear how they should be pronounced in the original language. Having pronunciations available is important because they help people study a language and, the wikipedia articles are a great resource to learn a language; they are short, cover a subject well and many of the related words related to a subject can be found in the article.
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
It used to be said that an experts in English could get to within 50 miles of a person's birthplace just by listening to the dialect. Dunno if that's still true in this more mobile age. In any case, supplying the life background of the speaker is critical, just like identifying the location of a picture, and I hope everybody is doing that for uploaded pronunciations.
50 miles? Even in these more mobile days that's nothing. For some communities, real experts could locate a persons' accent down to a few streets.
Arwel Parry wrote:
50 miles? Even in these more mobile days that's nothing. For some communities, real experts could locate a persons' accent down to a few streets.
I was amazed when I moved to Walthamstow (London E17). I heard accents from people obviously born here that sounded like NOTHING ON EARTH I'd ever heard before. The Australian accent is incredibly homogeneous by comparison.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
I was amazed when I moved to Walthamstow (London E17). I heard accents from people obviously born here that sounded like NOTHING ON EARTH I'd ever heard before. The Australian accent is incredibly homogeneous by comparison.
American, too. I pride myself (more or less) on speaking a very standard American English with a very standard American accent. This has become more important as I speak to people whose first language is not English, because a very mainstream American accent is easy to understand (for people who watch American movies, at least, which means a lot of people).
Germans and Dutch and French have reported to me that I am easier to understand than Angela, for example. (She has a beautiful accent in my opinion, but it sounds Very British.)
Now, even so, I once took a fun little quiz/survey online (which I can't find now) which was able to identify that I'm from the south -- it utilized vocabulary and pronounciation questions and in some cases I had no idea that there were regional variations at all.
--Jimbo
David Gerard wrote:
I was amazed when I moved to Walthamstow (London E17). I heard accents from people obviously born here that sounded like NOTHING ON EARTH I'd ever heard before. The Australian accent is incredibly homogeneous by comparison.
American, too. I pride myself (more or less) on speaking a very standard American English with a very standard American accent. This has become more important as I speak to people whose first language is not English, because a very mainstream American accent is easy to understand (for people who watch American movies, at least, which means a lot of people).
Germans and Dutch and French have reported to me that I am easier to understand than Angela, for example. (She has a beautiful accent in my opinion, but it sounds Very British.)
Now, even so, I once took a fun little quiz/survey online (which I can't find now) which was able to identify that I'm from the south -- it utilized vocabulary and pronounciation questions and in some cases I had no idea that there were regional variations at all.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________
Most of the world can't even tell what language i'm speaking most of the time. I'm from Newcastle, England and have the accent to suit.
I think that in Britain, the further North your accent originates from, the harder it is for those not from your area to understand you. The London accent is fairly easy to comprehend in comparison to a Manchurian or Geordie accent.
- D. Hedley
David DJ Hedley said:
David Gerard wrote:
I was amazed when I moved to Walthamstow (London E17). I heard accents from people obviously born here that sounded like NOTHING ON EARTH I'd ever heard before. The Australian accent is incredibly homogeneous by comparison.
American, too. I pride myself (more or less) on speaking a very standard American English with a very standard American accent.
[...]
Most of the world can't even tell what language i'm speaking most of the time. I'm from Newcastle, England and have the accent to suit.
Well I'm from Sunderland, which if anything has a more infamous accent than nearby Newcastle, and I now live...in Walthamstow. :)
David 'DJ' Hedley wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
I was amazed when I moved to Walthamstow (London E17). I heard accents from people obviously born here that sounded like NOTHING ON EARTH I'd ever heard before. The Australian accent is incredibly homogeneous by comparison.
American, too. I pride myself (more or less) on speaking a very standard American English with a very standard American accent. This has become more important as I speak to people whose first language is not English, because a very mainstream American accent is easy to understand (for people who watch American movies, at least, which means a lot of people).
Germans and Dutch and French have reported to me that I am easier to understand than Angela, for example. (She has a beautiful accent in my opinion, but it sounds Very British.)
Now, even so, I once took a fun little quiz/survey online (which I can't find now) which was able to identify that I'm from the south -- it utilized vocabulary and pronounciation questions and in some cases I had no idea that there were regional variations at all.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________
Most of the world can't even tell what language i'm speaking most of the time. I'm from Newcastle, England and have the accent to suit.
I think that in Britain, the further North your accent originates from, the harder it is for those not from your area to understand you. The London accent is fairly easy to comprehend in comparison to a Manchurian or Geordie accent.
- D. Hedley
Manchurian? I didn't even know the northern Chinese generally spoke English... :) Mancunian's not a difficult accent to understand (IMHO) -- see the current Doctor Who (well, it's Salford rather than Mancunian, but it's right next door). As to the further north you go, once you get past Glesga' and Embra, and west of Aberdeen you find they speak a very clear English in the Highlands/Inverness area with just a nice soft accent. The real distinction isn't "north" -- the really impenetrable accents are urban, and of course the accents which consistently end up at the bottom of surveys of desirability are Scouse and Brummie.
Arwel Parry (arwel@cartref.demon.co.uk) [050405 01:25]:
The real distinction isn't "north" -- the really impenetrable accents are urban, and of course the accents which consistently end up at the bottom of surveys of desirability are Scouse and Brummie.
Oh, yes. For a good example, listen to [[Benjamin Zephaniah]] speak (or perform), and then realise he was in fact born in Birmingham. Authentic native speech there.
By the way, I would strongly questoin GerardM's assertion that the person's way of pronouncing their name is *correct*, in the sense of people pronouncing it differently being *incorrect*. A proper noun can be a word in a language susceptible to accent variations without being *incorrect* - if someone says their name is "John Smith" in a Walthamstow council-estate accent, someone saying it in Australian, American newsreader, Canadian or whatever accent is not *incorrect* in pronouncing it the local way, not even a little bit. It's *interesting* to know how the person pronounces it, but it's not a firm guide to pronunciation. My own name would be pronounced in vastly varying ways in various languages of Europe, but even then I couldn't really assert the pronunciations were *incorrect*.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
By the way, I would strongly questoin GerardM's assertion that the person's way of pronouncing their name is *correct*, in the sense of people pronouncing it differently being *incorrect*.
:-) As a matter of courtesy I try really hard to pronounce GerardM's name in the way that he does (Dutch way) but it's basically impossible for me, and feels embarassing. So I vary between just giving up and pronouncing it the American way, and mangling it. ;-)
--Jimbo
When I met Gerard in Rotterdam, he said "hi, I am Gerard". I answered I did not know him... Could not recognise a name though it is a name used in France...he had to spell it :-)
ant
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales a écrit:
David Gerard wrote:
By the way, I would strongly questoin GerardM's assertion that the person's way of pronouncing their name is *correct*, in the sense of people pronouncing it differently being *incorrect*.
:-) As a matter of courtesy I try really hard to pronounce GerardM's name in the way that he does (Dutch way) but it's basically impossible for me, and feels embarassing. So I vary between just giving up and pronouncing it the American way, and mangling it. ;-)
--Jimbo
Anthere wrote:
When I met Gerard in Rotterdam, he said "hi, I am Gerard". I answered I did not know him... Could not recognise a name though it is a name used in France...he had to spell it :-)
ant
Hoi, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nl-Gerard.ogg If you want to hear how I pronounce my name. I would be really happy to have words (including names) in many languages. So, a French Gerard or an English Gerard would be appreciated. :) One Dutch Gerard is enough I think .. :)
Sabine has started an article on the Italian wiktionary, http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Giovanni_Paolo_II it shows how the pope's name is written in many languages. It would be cool to have the pronunciations here as well. I had already started this .. :)
Thanks, GerardM
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales a écrit:
David Gerard wrote:
By the way, I would strongly questoin GerardM's assertion that the person's way of pronouncing their name is *correct*, in the sense of people pronouncing it differently being *incorrect*.
:-) As a matter of courtesy I try really hard to pronounce GerardM's name in the way that he does (Dutch way) but it's basically impossible for me, and feels embarassing. So I vary between just giving up and pronouncing it the American way, and mangling it. ;-)
--Jimbo
At 8:58 PM +0000 3/22/05, Arwel Parry wrote:
Stan Shebs wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The idea is that you cannot reliably pronounce a word as it it should be pronounced just by seeing the characters when the word originated from another language. By making these resources available, it is clear how they should be pronounced in the original language. Having pronunciations available is important because they help people study a language and, the wikipedia articles are a great resource to learn a language; they are short, cover a subject well and many of the related words related to a subject can be found in the article.
This could be nightmarish in English - accents are widely variant and in Britain are used as markers of social status to a ridiculous degree. This is of course highly politicised. I confidently predict ten or more sound files per word.
It used to be said that an experts in English could get to within 50 miles of a person's birthplace just by listening to the dialect. Dunno if that's still true in this more mobile age. In any case, supplying the life background of the speaker is critical, just like identifying the location of a picture, and I hope everybody is doing that for uploaded pronunciations.
50 miles? Even in these more mobile days that's nothing. For some communities, real experts could locate a persons' accent down to a few streets.
FWIW
In England, within the first 30 seconds of someone opening their mouth, its still possible to place a person to within half a county or less purely from pronouciation.
With longer listening that picks up key marker vowels its also possible identify what class of person they spend their time with - via either community, work or travel. That is particularly true of immigrants who learn their English from different classes of contact.
e.g. an Australian who lived in Canada and then moved to S. London bears the footprints in their accent.
Peter
Peter Lofting wrote:
FWIW In England, within the first 30 seconds of someone opening their mouth, its still possible to place a person to within half a county or less purely from pronouciation. With longer listening that picks up key marker vowels its also possible identify what class of person they spend their time with - via either community, work or travel. That is particularly true of immigrants who learn their English from different classes of contact. e.g. an Australian who lived in Canada and then moved to S. London bears the footprints in their accent.
My accent nowadays varies wildly with who I'm talking to ...
- d.
There is no such thing as how a word "should be pronounced".
The word "hopilavayi" (a Hopi word meaning "hopi language") can be pronounced an infinite number of ways. There is a relatively small spectrum of what can be considered "authentic native-speaker pronunciation", roughly /hopilavaji/, but it isn't how it "should be pronounced": it is not nessecarily "wrong" to pronounce it /hUp:aIlEvEjaI/ or /xaUbaIleIveIxi/ or even /xrpbvljblvkrknlbo/, although those all most certainly fall outside of the spectrum of "authentic native-speaker pronunciation".
Some languages have a wider spectrum of ANSP than others, for example English would be much wider than Haida.
I don't dispute that recordings of pronunciations within the spectrum of ANSP would be valuable, but I believe they should be labelled as such - ie, "Native Hopi speaker pronouncing 'hopilavayi'" rather than "correct pronunciation of 'hopilavayi'" or "how 'hopilavayi' should be pronounced".
Mark
On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 17:50:19 +0100, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi,
More than 125 Italian politicians have now their own soundfile. They can be found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_politician More than 2500 words pronounced in Dutch can be found here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Dutch_pronunciation
The idea is that you cannot reliably pronounce a word as it it should be pronounced just by seeing the characters when the word originated from another language. By making these resources available, it is clear how they should be pronounced in the original language. Having pronunciations available is important because they help people study a language and, the wikipedia articles are a great resource to learn a language; they are short, cover a subject well and many of the related words related to a subject can be found in the article.
We are thinking of what (sound) resources would be popular as well.. Soccer stars like Ruud Gullit ?? We have volunteers that may pronounce them in Italian, German or Dutch.
We would REALLY like to have pronunciations for soccer stars because the pronunciations of these gentlemen is often really bad. It would be a fun project to have.
Thanks, GerardM
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