final s in foreign words in French

[Peter Houtzagers]

> In French, what is the correct pronunciation of the names "Atos,"
> "Portos," and "Aramis"? If the name is a foreign name, as in these cases
> the original names are Greek, is the final 's' pronounced, or is it, as
> in typical French nouns, proper and otherwise, silent? It seems to me
> that in the case of these names the final 's' must be pronounced for the
> sake of clarity?
>
> Does anybody know the accepted practice?

I'm almost certain that the s in these names is pronounced. It is a
misunderstanding, however, that in proper French nouns final s is not
pronounced. The s is pronounced in sens 'direction, sense, etc.',
tournevis 'screwdriver', Reims, mas 'kind of farm', the singular of
os 'bone', sometimes in plus 'more', and many more. There must be a
reason for this, but not being a romanist I don't know it.

Peter Houtzagers

Peter Houtzagers
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Dr. H. Peter Houtzagers
Slavic Dept., Groningen University, The Netherlands
h.p.houtzagers at let.rug.nl
tel. +31 50 363 6061/6067
fax +31 50 363 4900
http://www.let.rug.nl/~houtzage/
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