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ArchivesRe: pronunciation of Melusine?
in reply to a message by JHK
In French its usually pronounced may-lew-zeen.
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Sorry I don't think so. That's not French. It's a pronunciation only used to make it easier for English speakers because typical French sounds are very hard to make for them. The French would never pronounce 'lu' as 'lew'. Btw, the French spelling would be Mélusine.
ETA: Here's the pronunciation key I used: http://www.behindthename.com/pronunciation.php
ETA: Here's the pronunciation key I used: http://www.behindthename.com/pronunciation.php
This message was edited 8/23/2009, 2:01 AM
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I'm with Shaymin. Her pronunciation guide is much better for English speakers. I did not get anything close to Mélusine going by your version, and I speak French.
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Good for you, so do I. But hey, pronounce it the way you want to, I was just trying to give the pronunciation that follows the rules of the French language with the official pronunciation key of this site ;)
This message was edited 8/23/2009, 1:20 PM
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Wow, I completely forgot about this post and I had no idea I had started an angry discussion. For the record (not trying to sound like a snob or anything), I am fluent in French and am working on my masters in Linguistics. I went all 4 years of highschool in France and even went to school in the area where the legend of Melusine was born. If you heard me, you would never guess I was American born. JKR, when you responded with "I don't think so" It came off as rather rude, even if those were not your intentions. For the record, I did not even see your post before I posted. I hand't noticed it before, therefore I was not correcting your pronunciation. Since the person asking is most likely an English speaker, I am was assuming that she wouldn't understand the international pronunciation keys as provided by Lumia, I think its safe to say that most people in the world would be utterly confused with the pronunciation of mely'zine if they never took a phonetics or linguistics course. Now that I saw your pronunciation and compared it to mine, it looks like we were trying to come up with the same sounds, just wrote it out differently. I guess I could have gone more in detail about stress and the U sound in French, that this can be accomplished by rounding the lips as if attempting say an O while saying an E, sorry about that. I agree with Kirke that some of the Polish pronunciations are spot on, while some of them are more like Slovak or Czech pronunciations, and the Swedish pronunciation has a lot to be desired for.
This message was edited 8/27/2009, 2:23 PM
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I'll pronounce it correctly like I always do, thanks. Your guide left me with a completely different pronunciation. Plus, the official pronunciation key of this site leaves a lot to be desired. Many of the Polish names are way off. Polish is my first language and I speak it everyday. But I'm sure you think you know how to pronounce the Polish names on this site better then everyone else too.
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I hope you realise how rude your posts read, especially since you don't even bother to register. There is no need to be that offensive and no, I do not claim to know your native language better than you do. Btw, I do not claim to know French better than everyone else either but I was first to answer a question. Then someone tried to correct me but with a non-French pronunciation. I stated why I think that this is not correct. Shaymin's guide might be a good way to pronounce it in English though, we're still looking for an English pronunciation, remember?
As for the pronunciation key: Take a number for languages this key is not perfect for. It's actually missing sounds from my native language, so I know the problem but it is still the best coherent pronunciation key I've ever seen when it comes to inform English speakers about the pronunciation of foreign names from many languages. It does contain the correct sound for the French 'u' as in the word 'rue', so why not use it?
ETA: Sorry Isobel, this has turned into a personal discussion about French class and that's probably not what you wanted. Neither did I, sorry again.
As for the pronunciation key: Take a number for languages this key is not perfect for. It's actually missing sounds from my native language, so I know the problem but it is still the best coherent pronunciation key I've ever seen when it comes to inform English speakers about the pronunciation of foreign names from many languages. It does contain the correct sound for the French 'u' as in the word 'rue', so why not use it?
ETA: Sorry Isobel, this has turned into a personal discussion about French class and that's probably not what you wanted. Neither did I, sorry again.
This message was edited 8/24/2009, 2:05 AM
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I think in English it would be more like (mel-YOU-seen). An English pronunciation key for Melusine is not provided on this site. But to go step by step, mel as in Melon YOU as in the word you and seen. That's how the Americans and Brits in my French lit class usually said it when speaking English.
Edited: I didn't see Lumia's post. Sorry.
Edited: I didn't see Lumia's post. Sorry.
This message was edited 8/27/2009, 2:36 PM
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Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine
The correct pronunciation is [mely'zin], which in the respelling pronunciation used in this site would be may-luy-ZEEN.
Since the standard English language has not the sound [e] excepted in the diphthong [eI], represented by the group AY in the key guide, and since most of the English speakers hear [eI] as [e] (that is why they rhyme "no way, José"), that is why the more approximate respelling would be with "may" and not with "me" (which according to the key represents [ɛ], open-mid, and not [e], closed-mid).
JHK's option (me-luy-ZIN) was not correct in relation with the first [e] and the [i], but absolutely accurated for the stress and the sound [y]. On the other hand, Shaymin's option (may-lew-zeen) was correct with the [e] and the [i] but wrong for the sound [y] and the stress.
(And since in French mélusine is also a noun, and not only a name, it has been very easy to check the IPA transcription in a good dictionary with phonetic transcriptions.)
The only reliable way to transcript sounds is with IPA transcription. Any other system will be failed because it will be always based in a language to represent sounds of another language, which means two big problems:
a) some sounds will not have representation (as [e] or [y] in English);
b) other sounds, different but close, will be mixed up (as the English S and the Spanish S).
That said, I agree with JHK that this site's key is not perfect (several sounds of my native languages are not in it), neither non-IPA key is, but it is a coherent and reasonably comprehensive key (it includes a representation for [y], for instance). And, most important, since it is THE key of THIS site, the non-IPA transcriptions should adhere to it. If someone thinks that it can be improved, then send a message to MikeC with the proposal, in a constructive way.
The correct pronunciation is [mely'zin], which in the respelling pronunciation used in this site would be may-luy-ZEEN.
Since the standard English language has not the sound [e] excepted in the diphthong [eI], represented by the group AY in the key guide, and since most of the English speakers hear [eI] as [e] (that is why they rhyme "no way, José"), that is why the more approximate respelling would be with "may" and not with "me" (which according to the key represents [ɛ], open-mid, and not [e], closed-mid).
JHK's option (me-luy-ZIN) was not correct in relation with the first [e] and the [i], but absolutely accurated for the stress and the sound [y]. On the other hand, Shaymin's option (may-lew-zeen) was correct with the [e] and the [i] but wrong for the sound [y] and the stress.
(And since in French mélusine is also a noun, and not only a name, it has been very easy to check the IPA transcription in a good dictionary with phonetic transcriptions.)
The only reliable way to transcript sounds is with IPA transcription. Any other system will be failed because it will be always based in a language to represent sounds of another language, which means two big problems:
a) some sounds will not have representation (as [e] or [y] in English);
b) other sounds, different but close, will be mixed up (as the English S and the Spanish S).
That said, I agree with JHK that this site's key is not perfect (several sounds of my native languages are not in it), neither non-IPA key is, but it is a coherent and reasonably comprehensive key (it includes a representation for [y], for instance). And, most important, since it is THE key of THIS site, the non-IPA transcriptions should adhere to it. If someone thinks that it can be improved, then send a message to MikeC with the proposal, in a constructive way.
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Thank you so much for settling this discussion for us :)
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Thank you Lumia. Really, melusine is a noun in French? I've never heard it used, I know that in Czech or Slovak (forget which one) that it is a noun for a wailing wind. Does it mean the same thing in French, because I cannot find it any of my French dictionaries, or is it no longer in usage?
This message was edited 8/27/2009, 2:42 PM
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In French, mélusine is a noun with two different meanings. The first one refers to a mermaid picture in heraldry representations; it exists in other languages (the Catalan melusina, for instance). The other one refers to a type of felt, common in hat making.
The word is not a dark one since it appears in the big general French dictionaries (Académie, Larousse, Petit Robert). The Académie dictionary and the Larousse dictionary are available online. My Petit Robert (1993 edition) has the word (page 1380, second column, between melting-pot and membranaire) but the online free edition doesn't offer the word (perhaps it is in the subscription part).
I agree with you that if the person asking was an English speaker, it is probably that she doesn't understand the IPA transcription, which seems to be ignored in the English speaking countries even among university students; obviously, that is generally speaking and reasserted by my own experience in online boards, with American students in academic stages in Europe and with American (and some British) English dictionaries.
But I strongly disagree with you on the supposition that: "I think its safe to say that most people in the world would be utterly confused with the pronunciation of mely'zine if they never took a phonetics or linguistics course."
First at all, the knowledge of some rudiments of IPA symbols is expected in some countries for high school students in relation with the sounds of their languages and these symbols appear at least in exercises working on phonetics and orthography. For example, this is the case of France (as you know if you have studied there) and of Catalonia, where in the university entrance examination the students are asked to transcript (or to interpret the transcription) a word or a short syntagm. And the IPA transcriptions are common in dictionaries that include some type of phonetic indication, as Le Petit Robert or the Duden Lexikon der Vornamen, by Kholheim, which are not directed to linguistics or phonetics students but to the big audience.
The word is not a dark one since it appears in the big general French dictionaries (Académie, Larousse, Petit Robert). The Académie dictionary and the Larousse dictionary are available online. My Petit Robert (1993 edition) has the word (page 1380, second column, between melting-pot and membranaire) but the online free edition doesn't offer the word (perhaps it is in the subscription part).
I agree with you that if the person asking was an English speaker, it is probably that she doesn't understand the IPA transcription, which seems to be ignored in the English speaking countries even among university students; obviously, that is generally speaking and reasserted by my own experience in online boards, with American students in academic stages in Europe and with American (and some British) English dictionaries.
But I strongly disagree with you on the supposition that: "I think its safe to say that most people in the world would be utterly confused with the pronunciation of mely'zine if they never took a phonetics or linguistics course."
First at all, the knowledge of some rudiments of IPA symbols is expected in some countries for high school students in relation with the sounds of their languages and these symbols appear at least in exercises working on phonetics and orthography. For example, this is the case of France (as you know if you have studied there) and of Catalonia, where in the university entrance examination the students are asked to transcript (or to interpret the transcription) a word or a short syntagm. And the IPA transcriptions are common in dictionaries that include some type of phonetic indication, as Le Petit Robert or the Duden Lexikon der Vornamen, by Kholheim, which are not directed to linguistics or phonetics students but to the big audience.
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Ok, I suppose I stand corrected. I do remember learning it while in Lycée, but its vaguely all coming back to me now lol But I remember really studying it in University in the States. That was only roughly 2 years ago so maybe that is why I remember learning it there better than I remember learning it in France. Is there a way on the keyboards to reproduce some of the IPA symbols, or do you pretty much have to cut and paste?
I looked through my Larousse and it didn't really list Mélusine, (captilized), other than a folkloric figure, but then again, mine is an old edition. Interesting to know its the name of a type of material. I already knew about its heraldry. Supposedly Starbucks bases its logo off of the figure from legend. :))
I looked through my Larousse and it didn't really list Mélusine, (captilized), other than a folkloric figure, but then again, mine is an old edition. Interesting to know its the name of a type of material. I already knew about its heraldry. Supposedly Starbucks bases its logo off of the figure from legend. :))
This message was edited 8/31/2009, 4:27 PM
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In order to write the IPA symbols, I cut and paste (I write it in a Word document, with the font SILDoulos, which is specific for IPA). But even cutting and pasting doesn't allow to see the IPA symbols in a lot of forums.
Yesterday, while editing my post about Eilwen, I saw that the program converted the IPA symbols in codes (for instance "e" was transformed in "& # 601 ;" [without spaces]), so there is another way to write the symbols, but I don't know the equivalences yet.
Yesterday, while editing my post about Eilwen, I saw that the program converted the IPA symbols in codes (for instance "e" was transformed in "& # 601 ;" [without spaces]), so there is another way to write the symbols, but I don't know the equivalences yet.
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Thanks Lumia
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I agree with you here, I had to study IPA transcriptions in 8th grade in English class and I assume that Germany is not the only country in the world that expects high school students to deal with IPA in order to learn a foreign language (Thanks for giving me the English name for it, btw. We call it "Lautschrift" and our English teacher used to say "phonetic symbols").
Concerning [e]: I think you're right here, too. The French sound of 'é' also exists in German and many other languages which is probably why I did not use 'AY' for transcription. It is a totally different sound to me. That and the fact that I had been corrected for using 'AY' for [e] before.
Concerning [e]: I think you're right here, too. The French sound of 'é' also exists in German and many other languages which is probably why I did not use 'AY' for transcription. It is a totally different sound to me. That and the fact that I had been corrected for using 'AY' for [e] before.
This message was edited 8/30/2009, 11:30 AM
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to everyone who responded - many thanks. I would have assumed it was me-luy-sien - so was clearly wrong - and appreciate all of the detailed explanations very much.
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