Pronunciation of "Samoa"

Christopher Allen Sundita csundita at U.WASHINGTON.EDU
Sat Mar 3 20:35:47 UTC 2012


I was looking at the Wikipedia article on Samoan (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_language ) and I disagreed with
how the Samoan pronunciation of the name of the language was
represented in IPA, ['sa:moa]. Saying it out loud makes me think of a
Finnish word :-)

Listening to Samoans say it (in English) over the years, it seems like
that the primary stress falls on the penult while the lengthened first
syllable bears secondary stress. I'd render it in IPA as [,sa:'moa].

I'm not sure. But I'm interested in knowing what those of you familiar
with Samoan phonology think...

Thanks / Fa'afetai!

--Chris Sundita
Seattle
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