taking poll on pronunciation

[John Dunn]

I am distinctly taken aback to discover that my inadvertant re-sending* of a message first seen on this list several weeks ago has produced rather more responses than it did the first time round.  

It is, as Alina Israeli, says, not that simple, and if one were minded to take this question beyond mere contemplation to the levels of a serious academic study, then one would need to take into account not only the stress patterns of English (especially with regard to proper names), but also such matters as spurious analogies with other foreign languages, unhelpful transliteration systems and even the stress patterns of Russian itself.  Meanwhile, you may wish to know that the All-England Lawn Tennis Championships are being graced this year by a gentleman called, if the BBC (and at least one umpire) are to be believed, DolgOpolov.

I wonder, though, with respect to Paul Gallagher, how easy it is for an English speaker to pronounce Navrátil correctly.  In my experience English speakers have problems with long vowels in unstressed syllables and thus tend either to shorten the vowel or shift the stress onto the second syllable.  And Navrátilová, which combines a sequence of four unstressed syllables with two long unstressed vowels, is even harder to get right than Всеволодовна. 

John Dunn.

*Yes, I pressed 'send' instead of 'delete'.  Ah, the joys of computing on hot summer afternoons.  And apologies to those who weren't interested in the message the first time round.

-----Original Message-----
From: Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:14:29 -0400
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] taking poll on pronunciation

If it were that simple Zvonarëva would be pronounced correctly, but  
it isn't.

I could offer a few of more names for a stress test (so to speak):  
Shaposhnikova, Tartakovskaya, Slutskaya, Myskina, all usually  
mispronounced.



On Jul 1, 2010, at 8:52 AM, John Dunn wrote:

> , just as the pattern CasaNOva is probably responsible for stress  
> assignments of the SharaPOva type.

Alina Israeli
Associate Professor of Russian
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave.
Washington DC 20016
(202) 885-2387 	fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu





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John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
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Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
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