Here is another UK place name to confuse - Loughborough. Below is a video explaining the pitfalls to foreigners!
Pronouncing the unpronounceable
- Thread starter Extrocomp
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Depends on how you want to pronounce it. Pawd-rick is a common compromise for it.
Most Irish people would saw Paw-rick but quicker like Pawrick or Porrick.
In certain American accents that's true (which is a valid point) however the English pronunciation KAR-en (or possibly KA-ren) is a closer homonym of the Danish Katharina (of which it's a variant/dimunitive).
Ah, I didn't realize that. Fair point!
I don't consider that the exotic pronunciation at all, because it is like "Karen" or "Carrie." The way they pronounce it on the show, as "Kah-ra," sounds like the more exotic of the two. That "air" sound strikes me as a characteristically English vowel sound. Most other languages I'm familiar with favor the "ah" pronunciation for the letter A. "Kah-ra" is a pronunciation that would work in, say, Spanish or Japanese or any number of others. "Care-ah" sounds English, period.
Huh? You mean stressing the name on the second syllable? I have never heard that in my life.
They were a little inconsistent about it at first, but they settled into a pattern where people who were aligned with Ra's used the "raysh" pronunciation from the animated series, while people opposed to him used the "rozz" pronunciation from the Nolan films. I'm not sure which is actually correct, though the latter is a bit closer to standard Arabic pronunciation (more like "ross," but with a glottal stop after the vowel). I gather that the two pronunciations represent different regional dialects.
Perhaps exotic isn't the right word, but yes, the Raysh vs Rahzz thing on Arrow was the kinda thing I was thinking of. They also did a similar, pronunciation trick on JL(U) to get around the "Limited Use of Codenames" with John (Stewart) being voiced with the standard pronunciation, wheras J'onn (which classically corresponds to "John" in English), was voiced more like the French male name "Jean" (esp the Old French Jehan), which IFAIK shares etymological roots with "John".
As far as I know, that's how J'onn J'onzz has been pronounced in every screen adaptation from that show through the present (in Supergirl). I don't know about the unsold Justice League pilot with David Ogden Stiers as J'onn, though.
Nope, classic English "John Jones" on that one, though you're probably right that it's been used ever since (tho IIRC Smallville wasn't as obvious about it as JL(U), CoTE or Young Justice).
I've heard it pronounced Pah-der-ick.
It has probably been mentioned, but I don't know how Sioban is pronounced Shi-vahn. It's a Celtic thing.
I can understand it. SIO sounding like "shuh" has precedent in "mission" or "session." And a V is kind of an aspirated B, so it makes sense that BH would sound like V, by analogy with the sounds of S/SH and T/TH.
Mission is of Latin origin, and session is of Anglo-French and Latin origin. So, maybe some common origin for Sioban?
No. It's actually an Irish variant of Jehanne, a Norman-French version of Jeanne or Joanna. I'm not suggesting the similar spelling/sound denotes a similar origin, just that there are equivalent patterns elsewhere, so it's not as weird as it seems at first blush. For another example, consider that the Italian version of the same name is Giovanna.
http://www.behindthename.com/name/siobha10n
Giovanna might indicate a commonality, or at least an overlap. Celtic did originate in Europe, though it clearly wasn't a Romance language.
Well, the original Greek form of the name is Ioanna. Or Iohanna in Latin. So that's presumably where the vowels come from.
Kind of like how in Japanese, the concept of "si + o" is pronounced like "sho" in modern Japanese, but (I think) it evolved from being pronounced "see-o"
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