🚀 go-pugleaf

Perhaps this has already been seen in sci.lang, but I am sure that there are
many new readers like me who might be interested.

I'd like to be able to pronounce more-or-less correctly the words I see written
in any language, whether I can speak that language or not. The obvious purpose
is to address people by their names as they really should sound; geographic
names also come to mind.

Thus I think it would be useful to see good pronounciation tables posted in
sci.lang; I assume that there is a book that lists them, but I don't want to
buy it, and BTW some books I've seen which tried to do that had many 
mistakes even in the few languages I know...

I would ask people to post the tables for their native language (or for 
languages they are proficient in) similar to the one I am posting for my
native Croatian. Any language written in Latin script is interesting for
this purpose; for other languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Arabic,
Chinese...), while a complete pronounciation table would make little sense,
a brief guide to accentuation (stressing) is welcome.

Sven Hauptfeld

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	PRONOUNCIATION GUIDE :  C R O A T I A N

Language spoken in: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
                    (as its twin Serbian) Serbia and Montenegro 
Approx. # of speakers: 17 million (Croatian and Serbian together)
Language's name in its own words: hrvatski (=Croatian) / srpski (=Serbian)
Countries' names in its words: Hrvatska, Bosna i Hercegovina, Srbija,
								Crna Gora


Pronounciation is roughly phonetic, one letter for one sound. Three composite
letters (dz, lj, nj) look like exceptions, but they are considered one letter
each. Alphabet has 30 letters:

            v   ,        v   _      
a   b   c   c   c   d   dz   d [1]  e   f   g   h   i   j   k 

                                      v                   v   
l   lj   m   n   nj   o   p   r   s   s   t   u   v   z   z 

[1]...the 8th letter is written as d with a horizontal bar across it.

In the table below, the untypable letters will be written c",c',dz,d~,s",z".


				VOWELS

letter		English example given where possible, otherwise from another
		language. As it is not possible to infer the length from
		the written letter, two examples given for each letter:
			SHORT			LONG

  a	                cUt 			cAr 

  e	                pEt		   (French) palAIs 

  i		        pIck			pEAk 

  o		   (French) pOste		dOOr

  u			pUt			rUle

There are no diphtongs. Two adjacent vowels always form two syllables.


		 	CONSONANTS

letter	LaTeX code		English example given where possible;
	(untypable only)	otherwise from another language:

  c				piZZa

  c"	\v{c}			muCH

  c'	\'{c}			(Italian) CIao   (softer than c")

  dz	d\v{z}			Jump

  d~	no standard LaTeX code	(Italian) Giro	(softer than dz)

  g				Get

  h				Hot 	(always pronounced)

  j				Yes

  lj				poLLution	(or Spanish: LLama)

  nj				New

  s"	\v{s}			SHe

  z"	\v{z}			(French) Je

Other consonants pronounced roughly like in English. The only one that needs
some explanation is:

  r		It is pronounced rolling, but not guttural. Italian way of
		pronouncing it would be the closest. A peculiar feature: 
		between two consonants, it behaves like a vowel, i.e. forms
		a syllable - but is still pronounced the same way. This makes
		words like "prst" (finger) almost impossible to pronounce
		for non-Slavic people. Hint: imagine it is written -ar-, it
		will not be quite the same, but will get close.


			ACCENT  (STRESS)

In polysyllabic words, the last syllable is NEVER stressed; otherwise there
are no strict rules (sorry!).

A hint: names ending in -ovic' or -evic' (quite common) are NEVER stressed
on -ov- or -ev- (quite unlike Russian).

Some frequently mispronounced names (pronounciation given so as to be easily
				recognized by English-speaking people):

name			incorrect		correct
			(but often heard in USA)

Sarajevo		* sa-ra-YE-voh		SA-ra-ye-voh

Zagreb			* zag-REB		ZA:-greb	(":" = long)

Hercegovina		* her-tse-go-VI-nah	HER-tse-go-vi-nah

Dubrovnik		* dub-ROV-nik		DOOB-rov-nik

Draz"en Petrovic'	* DRA-zen pet-RO-vich	DRA-zhen PET-ro-vich