Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner So, how do YOU pronounce Poulenc?

Not right? Neither one is "right" vis-à-vis the French pronunciation; Anglicizations are only approximations, and on that basis I wouldn't call either "not right."

FWIW, Wikipedia confirms that SHOW-pan is dominant in English:
(The apostrophe denotes primary stress.)

Steven

i can't think of anything...how do you say it in missouri?

it's just the way french is structured, there are sounds that are unique to french, especially those nasal sounds like -in or -en
i can't really write how chopin or poulenc are pronounced, i guess bruce's phonetic form is the best (i didn't you spoke french btw)
personally i don't pronounce the c (or k) at the end of poulenc

I don't know about Missouri, but in Texas we pronounce it BOW-dark. It's the name of a tree also called "Horse Apple Tree".

Audio pronuncian of Poulenc from Merriam Webster

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?bixpou01.wav=Poulenc

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I don't think it's regional While I may be a southerner, I promise you that I don't say "Chopin" with a pronounced southern accent. It isn't "show-PAYAN."

Speaking of towns/cities, there are Beaufort, South Carolina, and Beaufort, North Carolina. The first is "Byoo-fort;" the second is "Bow-fort." Accent on the first syllable. Maybe it's another North/South thing.

Fran-swah

Awn-tee Lin

Plonk!



Steven

DuBois, Pennsylvania is pronounced "DOO boyz."

Yes, I'm sorry, but it is.

Fortunately it's right on Route 80 so you can keep driving past at 65+mph.

Following that practice, and knowing that Chopin's father was French, how would you pronounce "Chopin" in the presence of your musical friends?

Would they double over with laughter?

Concerning the previous posts on stressing syllables in "Chopin" . . . even if it's correct in French to accent the second (or last) syllable, it's not done so as strongly as in America. It's said in American in American way (as was mentioned earlier, is fashionable) that gives a much stronger stress on the second syllable.

I give only a slight stress on the first, if any actually, and others I've heard in the area say it the same.

But then, I mean, French words in Welsh accent? Inconceivable!

Ok, class. Your next assignment is to list all the various pronounciations of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Ah, little Welsh villages...

There's only one pronounciation if which I know!

hopinmad, once again I will try to address this misapprehension about the "American way" of pronouncing Chopin.

From Merriam-Webster (identical to the pronunciation I already provided from Wikipedia, but not written in IPA):

\ˈshō-ˌpan, -ˌpaⁿ\

This is Merriam-Webster's audio:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?bixcho05.wav=Chopin
That sounds like a description of the Merriam-Webster audio clip, and it's the pronunciation I've heard all my life.

The U.S. is a big country, with plenty of regional and demographic variants. I'm not disputing that some Americans stress the second syllable or that you might have encountered that in American speech, but it's not the norm.

Steven

Two, if you go to some regions of Quebec - the "in" has a kind of reverb to it.

Would it make sense for PW to create an audiofile of correct pronunciation of the names of composers or works in foreign languages, created by people of that nationality? Surely it doesn't make sense for an international community to hear the American pronunciation of a French name.

One of the jobs that linguists get hired to do is the creation of audiofiles and dubbing, of course. I can't make sense of the pronunciation dictionaries I found on-line, with some horrid mispronciations - why bother create the file in that case?

I don't follow this. We're an international community of English speakers, and there are standard English pronunciations for foreign words and names—and necessarily so in the many cases of sounds that don't exist in English and can only be approximated.

I'm not referring to any pronunciations that are uniquely American, but rather those which are standard throughout the English-speaking world. Why would anyone find that not to make sense? It might be interesting and even valuable to hear how something is pronounced in its native language, but that's not what we're speaking. And the native speakers of other languages already know how to pronounce their words!

Steven

I simply thought it would be good to have a neutral reference of how names are pronounced in the country of origin. But also in reference to what you wrote, this international community corresponds in the English language because there must be a common language. That does not make it a community of English speakers. Even if it were, I am not certain that there is one standard English version of foreign names across the different English speaking countries. Canada, for example, is officially bilingual with every school child being obligated to learn the French language. I imagine it is much more likely for French names to be pronounced in the French manner including having the accent on the correct syllable - in other words, Canada's pronunciation of French names may be different than America's pronunciation of French names. I cannot speak to Britain, Australia, parts of Africa because I'm not familiar with how such things are pronounced there.

I don't know for a fact whether there is a standard English manner of pronouncing foreign words. For me, in any case, it's a strange concept, because I have always pronounced a word in the manner of its language of origin. In all naivete, until today I did not know that there was such a thing as a standard English pronunciation of foreign names.

That's really splitting hairs! How about a community of English writers, then, since we're not actually "speaking" English?
I would be surprised, except in the case of francophone or bilingual Canadians. Anyone else anywhere who's learned French should theoretically be able to pronounce French words as they are pronounced in French, but would they really do so within the context of speaking English? It's plausible, but would seem (to this American, anyway) quite affected.
Replicating a word as it's spoken in its language of origin is all but impossible for English-only speakers unless they've studied the language or the sounds of the word are phonetically identical to those of English. For the numerous articulations that don't exist in English, it just doesn't happen.

Since you're a linguist, you might be at ease even with clicks! For the typical American, a uvular fricative or an alveolar tap are often beyond reach even after years of studying French or Spanish, respectively. It's more a matter of education and motivation than capability, sure, but this unfortunate description is accurate nonetheless.

Finally, regarding "standard" pronunciation of foreign names, the majority of Wikipedia entries for people with unusual surnames offer the pronunciation in IPA. I can't say in every case whether it's prescriptive or descriptive, but it reflects consensus—and, generally, an assiduous resistance to U.S.-centric bias.

Steven

[edit: typo!]

I have done nothing more than suggest that it might be a good idea to have a resource that will let us know how the names are pronounced in their original languages. I thought it might be of interest to this international community. Either it is of interest or it is not.

Again, this is an international community. The English language has become the standard language of communication of the Internet because we need some language - therefore on PW we communicate in English. Even the three translator sites have a rule that communication must be in English unless a language-specific forum is involved.

However, the actual spoken language of this vast community is not necessarily English, let alone American English. The community on this site might be interested in knowing how names are pronounced in the original language, and then make adaptations to those names according to what they are capable of pronouncing from their mother tongue abilities. I thought I might be addressing the interests of this international community. In their own settings they would not necessarily be speaking English or discussing composers in English.

I was not at all splitting hairs, but defining this community, therefore what linguistic realities their everyday lives may hold.

Wikkipedia is not an authoritative source, it is a compendium of hodgepodge information that tries to be accurate.

I think the real authority is to know how names are commonly pronounced in the various circles of each country: schools, studios, orchestras, perhaps radio and television.

Most of what you say is self-evident. And if you acknowledge that we're a community, and using English for the purpose of communicating, IMHO you are splitting hairs by saying we're not an English-speaking community. It is in fact what we're doing here regardless of our everyday lives—we're a community using English to communicate.

" ... let alone American English"? I don't know why you're so defensive, particularly in trying to frame this as a U.S. vs. The Rest of the World sort of situation. It is not.

And if you think Wikipedia lacks authority, you should familiarize yourself with it more. Start with the many detailed articles about linguistics, even. And if you happen to find inaccurate information, edit it—or share your questions on the discussion pages! You'll be in the company of scholars who share your concerns and your scrutiny.

Steven