How Do You Pronounce ____________? (2 Viewers)

[raymie]

How do you pronounce aracari? It's "ah-rah-sah-ri", right? Or am I just totally wrong?

Opening this up to other because surely there are other people wondering how to pronounce specific bird names.

 

[birdboybowley]

That's how i say it

 

[delia todd]

A-ra-car-i is what I say.

But then I used to say Gala for Galah. Learnt that lesson on my first day in Australia LOL

 

[Jacana]

It should be Ara-sah-ri, because it used to be spelt "Araçari".

 

[01101001]

a-ra-car-i would be the Latin pronunciation (as in: 'Pteroglossus aracari') according to Sound dictionary: Bird names | International Ornithologists' Union

 

[James Lowther]

It should be Ara-sah-ri, because it used to be spelt "Araçari".

Same as Jacana I believe?
James

 

[Jacana]

dza-sah-NAH would be closer to the original, but you'd be hard pushed to find an English speaker who would come close to that these days.

 

[Mysticete]

How do you pronounce aracari? It's "ah-rah-sah-ri", right? Or am I just totally wrong?

Opening this up to other because surely there are other people wondering how to pronounce specific bird names.

This is the pronunciation my guide in Ecuador used, so I assume it is the correct one.

 

[Andy Adcock]

It should be Ara-sah-ri, because it used to be spelt "Araçari".

It presumably should still be but we don't have the cedilla in the English alphabet. We do, obviously have words where the 'C' is pronounced as an 'S' and it could perhaps be a valid criticism of English, that there is actually no way to identify when this is the case, you just have to know.

I remember when I was in Sumatra and wanted to go to a place called Percut for MIllky Stork. I couldn't understand why none of the tuk-tuk drivers knew where it was. I then remebered that in Bahasa, a 'C' is pronounced as 'Ch' and once I employed that, it was problem solved.

My biggest faux pas from the distant past, is pronoucing Treepie, not like Magpie (never made the connection!) but as Treepee..........

 

[Mysticete]

My biggest faux pas from the distant past, is pronoucing Treepie, not like Magpie (never made the connection!) but as Treepee..........

For whatever reason, when I first started birding I pronounced Scoter as Scooter.

 

[chowchilla]

It's Ara-SAR-i in my two English language dictionaries, cedilla or otherwise.

There's other bird names that get pronounced wrong -typically by those who are not from the area.

Gerygone catches a lot of non-Aussies out: (should be Juh-RIG-unee)

Jery (Malagasy birds) is not pronounced JEH-ree, but more 'Jerr' with just the hint of palatalisation on the final R. Other Malagasy birds have similarly weird pronunciations, but are typically Anglicised by English speakers.

 

[pbjosh]

This is the pronunciation my guide in Ecuador used, so I assume it is the correct one.

Yeah but you'll hear a hard c, Ah-rah-kaw-rih or some such in Spanish speaking countries fairly frequently, and in English speaking countries and for me this one is getting into pedantry to try to correct people.

Juh-caw-nuh in English speaking countries vs Haw-cah-nah in Spanish speaking countries vs zha-za-nah (hard to transcribe) in Brazil is even more ingrained, and I think you'd kind of be an ass to correct most people on the pronunciation. Words get absorbed into other languages and the accepted pronunciation in a place is what it is.

My favorite of the lot is Trindade Petrel An esoteric enough bird you can really have a go at friends for mispronouncing it, as only hardcore bird nerds would even name the species.

 

[pbjosh]

Going back to the aspect of pronouncing the things as they're pronounced in the place of origin vs in places that have adopted the words, I find it interesting how words and brand names borrowed from English into Spanish get pronounced. A lot of the time it has to do with an original pronunciation that made the word known, be it a brand's own commercial or a movie or whatnot.

For fun, some of my favorite pronunciations in latin America:

Levi's becomes "lehvees"
Nike is pronounced as you might guess in English if you didn't know to make it two syllables, so "nyk" more or less
Liquid Paper becomes "leekeepahpur"
Disney becomes something like "Deehnay"
Snoopy becomes "Ehnoopie"
LinkedIn becomes "leenkaydeen"
Bullying becomes "booling" more or less

There are so many, but then there are plenty of things that get pronounced pretty close to bog standard English, again following (usually) how the words got introduced.

 

[Daniesser]

In Portuguese you would pronunce it "ah-rah-sah-ri". The "ç" is pronounced as "ss".

 

[01101001]

Some people in Poland pronounce Apple the company as 'eigh-pull'. Then come the French names: Leroy Merlin as 'lee-roy me-rlin', Auchan as either 'ow-khan' or (by folk etymology) 'osh-a-wom', and 'croissant' as 'kroy-sant'.

EDIT: LinkedIn is, similarly, 'leen-ke-deen'.

EDIT 2: English words have a bit of a different system of pronunciation in Polish in general with 'aw' pronounced as 'ow', 'ow' pronounced as 'oh', 'oh' pronounced as 'o' (sometimes), final 'ey' pronounced as 'eigh', 'eigh' pronounced as 'eh' (sometimes), 'urr' pronounced like 'oor', 'th' pronounced as either 't', 'f' or 'd', just one 'a' sound, just one 'o' sound, just one 'oo' sound, a rhotic 'r', and every syllable somewhat stressed (no schwas). Not adhering to these rules risks making one appear pretentious.

 

[foresttwitcher]

Then there is also: Pochard, Scaup, Hoopoe, Sabine's (as in Gull), Towhee, Pyrrhuloxia, Dickcissel, Phainopepla... and on and on...

 

[Andy Adcock]

It's Ara-SAR-i in my two English language dictionaries, cedilla or otherwise.

There's other bird names that get pronounced wrong -typically by those who are not from the area.

Gerygone catches a lot of non-Aussies out: (should be Juh-RIG-unee)

Jery (Malagasy birds) is not pronounced JEH-ree, but more 'Jerr' with just the hint of palatalisation on the final R. Other Malagasy birds have similarly weird pronunciations, but are typically Anglicised by English speakers.

An Aussie birder I once met told me this, I thought he was joking!

 

[Andy Adcock]

Some people in Poland pronounce Apple the company as 'eigh-pull'. Then come the French names: Leroy Merlin as 'lee-roy me-rlin', Auchan as either 'ow-khan' or (by folk etymology) 'osh-a-wom', and 'croissant' as 'kroy-sant'.

EDIT: LinkedIn is, similarly, 'leen-ke-deen'.

EDIT 2: English words have a bit of a different system of pronunciation in Polish in general with 'aw' pronounced as 'ow', 'ow' pronounced as 'oh', 'oh' pronounced as 'o' (sometimes), final 'ey' pronounced as 'eigh', 'eigh' pronounced as 'eh' (sometimes), 'urr' pronounced like 'oor', 'th' pronounced as either 't', 'f' or 'd', just one 'a' sound, just one 'o' sound, just one 'oo' sound, a rhotic 'r', and every syllable somewhat stressed (no schwas). Not adhering to these rules risks making one appear pretentious.

I think you can probably blame America for these two.

 

[Lewis]

Ibis

=

eye-bus
or
ee-bus
?

 

[Andy Adcock]

Ibis

=

eye-bus
or
ee-bus
?

How do you get 'bus' from 'bis'?