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ArchivesRe: Czech pronounciation - correction of everything said before! :-)
in reply to a message by ToveTer
I'm Czech and my sister's name is Marie, so I know very well. :-)
It's on the contrary: names ending "-ia" sound rather archaic to us and we tend to change them to "-ie", though the "-ia" is sometimes used, too. And that is feminine, never masculine. So Livie is feminine! Always!
We do the same with all foreign words originally ending with "-ia". Melody is melodiE, history is historiE...
Masculine names of this type end just like in Latin, -ius - but they aren't very common. Sometimes they're turned into Czech much more and look completely different; I can't think of any example now...
Though Shellac is right in a way, because all the other feminine names really end with -a in Czech.
(With other small exceptions like Zoe, Noemi, Rút... but that's a minority and always of foreign origin. Well, then there's Kazi, legendary Czech name, but there are really few people named so and since it was recorded for the first time in a latinised text, I really am not sure what it actually was...)
Accent is ALWAYS on the first syllable in Czech. That's an easy rule. :-)
You should keep in mind that accents ("á") above vowels in Czech don't mean word accent, it means the vowel is prolonged.
And "ie" is always pronunciated as two syllables.
It's on the contrary: names ending "-ia" sound rather archaic to us and we tend to change them to "-ie", though the "-ia" is sometimes used, too. And that is feminine, never masculine. So Livie is feminine! Always!
We do the same with all foreign words originally ending with "-ia". Melody is melodiE, history is historiE...
Masculine names of this type end just like in Latin, -ius - but they aren't very common. Sometimes they're turned into Czech much more and look completely different; I can't think of any example now...
Though Shellac is right in a way, because all the other feminine names really end with -a in Czech.
(With other small exceptions like Zoe, Noemi, Rút... but that's a minority and always of foreign origin. Well, then there's Kazi, legendary Czech name, but there are really few people named so and since it was recorded for the first time in a latinised text, I really am not sure what it actually was...)
Accent is ALWAYS on the first syllable in Czech. That's an easy rule. :-)
You should keep in mind that accents ("á") above vowels in Czech don't mean word accent, it means the vowel is prolonged.
And "ie" is always pronunciated as two syllables.
This message was edited 2/2/2008, 2:13 PM
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