How to pronounce certain words/letters.
I was not taught how to pronounce these letters within words so please bear with me.
I am really interested in learning history, and would like to pronounce words correctly. The hardest words to 'know' how to pronounce are those that are not contained within the English language.
Here are a few examples (my keyboard does not even support these letters, so i am copy and pasting):
Hárjánáz
Skándzá
And others that you could help me with. Anything with none-English letters in: á
I understand that some of these letters mean certain accents, not just how the word is formed in speech.
Re: How to pronounce certain words/letters.
The Swêboz pronounciation has baffled me for a while too. For instance I don't understand why there are so much accent marks. And the ê also leaves me wondering what it does mean.
Nonetheless I can present my (educated) guesses at how to pronounce the names and letters. At least with vowels I'm quite sure.
For instance the word Skándzá refers to Scandinavia, so the pronounciations should be quite similar. So the á is probably pronounce just as an germanic a. That means the a is pronounced as in father. Z leaves me just guessing, maybe it's pronounced just as z is usually in english as an voiced s.
Other word I can very easily answer is Kuningáz, mainly because Finnish has the germanic loan word Kuningas. The u is pronounced as in food, not as a long vowel though. I as in eat. The ng in finnish is as singing but little longer, but I'm not sure if it is the same in proto-germanic.
The - in Swêbo-z is probably mark of a long vowel, based on the fact that the - is (when possible) on top of the consonant.
Sadly this is a thing that only someone from EB team could answer with any certainty, as they are the only ones who know what transliteration system they actually used while giving Swêboz thing their names.
Re: How to pronounce certain words/letters.
According to your educated guesses I've been reading those words correctly, how cool :D... More and more I believe I've been blessed with the hardest and most flexible language out there (portuguese) eheh
Re: How to pronounce certain words/letters.
Thanks guys. I would like to hear from the EB team also :D
Re: How to pronounce certain words/letters.
We only have one active sweboz contributor, and he is swamped right now. If he can answer, that would be nice, but you might have to rely on some other sources right now. Most of us EB'ers probably can't pronounce those German ones either if it's any consolation. :grin:
AW: How to pronounce certain words/letters.
Well, pronouncing the Germanic words seems to be far more easy than Celtic ones. Although I (German myself) cannot remember the name of the Suebian capital... :oops:
Re: How to pronounce certain words/letters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puupertti Ruma
The Swêboz pronounciation has baffled me for a while too. For instance I don't understand why there are so much accent marks. And the ê also leaves me wondering what it does mean.
In French, and (very rarely used, but present - mainly in outdated spelling of French loan words) Dutch, an ê refers to the fact that it originally was es. The accent marks could either refer to "Greek style" of pronouncing words (based on whether or not the tone is rising etc.), or to a "Dutch" style (whether or not the syllabe is stressed, short or long).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puupertti Ruma
For instance the word Skándzá refers to Scandinavia, so the pronounciations should be quite similar. So the á is probably pronounce just as an germanic a. That means the a is pronounced as in father. Z leaves me just guessing, maybe it's pronounced just as z is usually in english as an voiced s.
In Dutch the "á" is a long form of "a" - and thus pronounced as in the Latin femina. Father uses a different 'type of a'. Compare the German "aber".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Puupertti Ruma
Other word I can very easily answer is Kuningáz, mainly because Finnish has the germanic loan word Kuningas. The u is pronounced as in food, not as a long vowel though. I as in eat. The ng in finnish is as singing but little longer, but I'm not sure if it is the same in proto-germanic.
In Dutch the "ng", is the same as a double gamma in ancient Greek, a bit longer than in the English "ring". The "z" could be the same as in the English "zero" - perhaps a bit longer. Also possible, but unlikely given the "dz" combination, is that it is pronounced the modern German way: "ts". The "u" would be just like in modern German.
