Pronunciation of "Ngaio"

Herb Stahlke hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM
Sat May 9 00:22:04 UTC 2009


Does anyone know how the New Zealand mystery writer Edith Ngaio Marsh
pronounced her middle name, which she went by as an author?  Wikipedia
gives /'naioU/, but I've also heard /'NgaioU/, sometimes with trace of
an upper mid or high central vowel, and the appalling /n at gaioU/.  I'm
assuming, on no more grounds than her New Zealand provenance, that the
name is Maori and that the Maori pronunciation would be /'NaioU/, but
this obviously would not work for most English speakers.  I don't even
know for a fact that it would work for Maori speakers.

Herb

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