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ArchivesEsmée's pronunciation and form
So, I'm hearing that Esmée's supposed to be pronounced EZ-mee. Why? The -ée ending and French derivation would lead me to the ez-MAY pronunciation, like Renée's re-NAY and Aimée's e-MAY. So why is Esmée apparently an exception?
And why is Esmé apparently the accepted female form, despite the fact that René isn't usually used for girls even in English-speaking countries, but Renée is? (Aimé's unheard of for girls, as far as I know, in English-speaking countries, which is why I excluded it.)
Miranda
And why is Esmé apparently the accepted female form, despite the fact that René isn't usually used for girls even in English-speaking countries, but Renée is? (Aimé's unheard of for girls, as far as I know, in English-speaking countries, which is why I excluded it.)
Miranda
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Replies
I think you're confusing English pronunciation of French with French pronunciation...big difference actually. An English speaker will never perfectly replicate French speech so all you can do is get as close as possible. In French René has a growly gutteral throat sound at the beginning that's impossible to illustrate or replicate in English (okay, it's possible, but difficult and I have little faith in most English speakers making the effort) you can hear it from a French native but we all stick to the more universal R sound.
The accent aigu and extra e simply serves in French to double emphasise the syllable and sound. Aimé is Eh-MEH (sounds a lot like 'Emmy'), Aimée is eh-MEY; René is re-NEH, Renée is re-NEY. All that makes perfect sense to a French speaker but an English speaker is going 'what's the difference'? And that's because the vowels of French are rather more subtle than those of English. So how to get around that? Well, they know Renée as re-NAY so working backwards, re-NAY actually has the open mouth end stance of re-NEH so we drop that one completely. Esmé/Esmée is from the same root as Aimé/Aimée so maybe we'll have better luck there. Aimée as a form of Amy everyone gets and most would illustrate that ay-MEE (I'd like to see it eh-MEE but hey, if French was universal we wouldn't be talking now ;o) so how to explain Aimé? Go back to Renée for eh-MAY.
Now, I'd love to pop up some audio files to save myself the trouble of trying to 'translate' from French to English to American because inevitably my memory of American accents is going to fail me and like a Chinese whisper game what comes out on the other end is not at all what I had in mind when I write. I'm sure we'd all love an audio-file sharing system - it's so much easier to hear than to explain. But I'm a realist and I know it's not going to be perfect French no matter how much thought I put into it or how much effort the end user puts into it, just an approximation...hopefully a good one.
The accent aigu and extra e simply serves in French to double emphasise the syllable and sound. Aimé is Eh-MEH (sounds a lot like 'Emmy'), Aimée is eh-MEY; René is re-NEH, Renée is re-NEY. All that makes perfect sense to a French speaker but an English speaker is going 'what's the difference'? And that's because the vowels of French are rather more subtle than those of English. So how to get around that? Well, they know Renée as re-NAY so working backwards, re-NAY actually has the open mouth end stance of re-NEH so we drop that one completely. Esmé/Esmée is from the same root as Aimé/Aimée so maybe we'll have better luck there. Aimée as a form of Amy everyone gets and most would illustrate that ay-MEE (I'd like to see it eh-MEE but hey, if French was universal we wouldn't be talking now ;o) so how to explain Aimé? Go back to Renée for eh-MAY.
Now, I'd love to pop up some audio files to save myself the trouble of trying to 'translate' from French to English to American because inevitably my memory of American accents is going to fail me and like a Chinese whisper game what comes out on the other end is not at all what I had in mind when I write. I'm sure we'd all love an audio-file sharing system - it's so much easier to hear than to explain. But I'm a realist and I know it's not going to be perfect French no matter how much thought I put into it or how much effort the end user puts into it, just an approximation...hopefully a good one.
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You are right, Aimée really sound as a name from the roaring twenties. It is a nice name: its pronunciation (in French) is quite mellifluous and it means "loved". Surprinsingly, these names are somehow going throught a revival amongst a certain population in France and I would not be surprised to see more of them (Clement, Grégoire, Antoine, Adrien, Claire, Julie, Valentine ...).
However René is more typical from the forties and fifties: I think it will have to wait for a few decades to become popular again (like André, Georges, Agnès...)
However René is more typical from the forties and fifties: I think it will have to wait for a few decades to become popular again (like André, Georges, Agnès...)
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If you read her post about the way real french people pronounce them, they're different.
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Also, I noticed that in French the emphasis is usually placed on the last syllable (as opposed to English where the emphasis is typically at the beginning or middle), so the pronounciation of ez-MAY for Esme and Esmee is correct. Just like we pronounce Rene and Renee re-NAY and Aime and Aimee e-MAY.
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