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  Peter Roach

Names in the news

20/3/2019

5 Comments

 
I feel in need of some expert advice on the pronunciation of a couple of names that are in the news. The first is Beira (city in Mozambique, currently badly damaged by storm). On radio and TV, there seems to be a 50/50 divide over whether the first syllable has /ai/ or /ei/. All the pron dictionaries I have looked at have the /ai/ diphthong for British English, including CEPD, but if the name was given by Portuguese-speaking colonisers I'd have thought /ei/ was more likely. Wikipedia gives no pronunciation for the city in Mozambique,  but Beira in Portugal is given as ˈbɐjɾɐ. 

The other name is the surname of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. The 'r' in the second syllable seems to be causing confusion. Several broadcasters produce a stress on the second syllable, as in the word 'astern'. Others give the name initial stress but a long vowel in the second syllable (sometimes the second syllable is pronounced so emphatically that it sounds like Speaker John Bercow's way of shouting "order"). Wikipedia gives the pronunciation as  ˈɑ:rdɜ:rn. I would have expected stress on the first syllable and a final syllable with schwa, as in 'Malvern', but I don't hear that much.
5 Comments
Salah Essa link
20/3/2019 12:30:59 pm

As an Arabic speaker. Words with 'ei' letters are usually pronounced with /ei/ diphthong, such as Beirut. Words with near-arab districts tend to have the same pronunciation. Kindly check this link, ut contains the pronunciation. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/beira

Yours,
Salah A. Essa.

Iraq

Reply
Peter
20/3/2019 05:39:33 pm

Thank you for your comment. The link was very helpful.

Reply
Salah
21/3/2019 10:19:42 am

Most welcome Professor. I am glad that I have been helpful. By the way, we study your "English Phonetics and Phonology" in the English Department at ghe Iraqi Universities. It is very eeasy--to-understand and valuable book. I also explain it to the students online via English and Arabic so they can understand it properly.

Reply
Geoff Lindsey
1/4/2019 12:17:40 pm

This tweet
https://twitter.com/tfswebb/status/921224172533039105?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E921224172533039105&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nzherald.co.nz%2Fnz%2Fnews%2Farticle.cfm%3Fc_id%3D1%26objectid%3D11935447
suggests she says it /ˈɑːdəːn/, matching Wikipedia, but this NZ politician
https://youglish.com/search/ardern/aus?
seems to use final stress. I wonder if dictionaries should mention the likelihood of 'intrusive' r...

Btw typo: jacinDa

Reply
Peter
2/4/2019 09:53:55 am

Thanks for this. I have corrected Jacinta to Jacinda (not a typo, just ignorance). I'll keep looking out for for instances of "Ardern".

Reply



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    A blog that discusses problems in Wikipedia's coverage of Phonetics

    Peter Roach

    Emeritus Professor of Phonetics,
    ​University of Reading, UK

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