Pronunciation of Donetsk

[Laurence Horn]

On May 29, 2014, at 12:46 AM, imwitty wrote:

> One more thing related to the Ukrainian events:
> 99% of the on-line news mention "Slovyansk" (which is wrong) instead of
> "Slavyansk", probably trying to avoid any association with the English
> ¨slave¨, or thinking that the root of "Slovyansk" is "slovo" (Russian and
> Ukrainian translation of the English "word".

I'd wager it's neither of the above; the simpler explanation is unfamiliarity with the Russian and (I assume from the above) Ukrainian rule that unstressed /o/ (or orthographic <o> in both Cyrillic and standard Romanization) is pronounced [a], something you're taught in Russian 101, which not all the newscasters have taken.  Hence a garden-variety spelling pronunciation.  Same for Donetsk, which I haven't heard as "duh-neck", but have usually heard as /do'nyEtsk/ (when the first vowel isn't simply schwazified) rather than /da'nyEtsk/.

LH



> Meanwhile the root of the correct city name -- Slavyansk -- is the same as
> in ¨Slavic¨¨ and/or "Slav(s)."
>
>
> On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      Pronunciation of Donetsk
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>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Today I heard a local Boston news announcer say "duh-neck".
>>
>> Joel
>>
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