Ngaio Marsh

[Lars Henrik Mathiesen]

> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:56:24 +0000
> From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)

> Even after they have completed their phonetics course, few of my
> students seem happy about pronouncing 'Ngaio' with eng.  And most
> English-speakers seem to find initial eng impossible.  I wonder,
> therefore: is it really possible for English to accept a foreign
> word with initial eng?  I suspect it isn't.

If anecdotes about surname pronunciation are really on topic here, I'd
like to know what happens to the (Korean?) family name Ng in the
mouths of English-speaking non-linguists.

(I'm guessing that the native pronunciation is a vocalic eng, but I've
never heard anyone pronounce it in either Korean or English).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)