It’s only playsh when I’m drunk.
Here’s the problem with that: there’s no such thing as an “American English” pronunciation. Anyone who has been to both Jonesboro Tennessee and Mackinac Island, Michigan (for example) can attest to this. In fact, those visiting Jonesboro and, say, Siler City, NC can attest to the fact that two Southerners can often struggle to understand each other.
I am pretty confident that the same is true in France. As long as I can come close enough to be within shouting distance of some legitimate French take on a name, I’m ok.
That’s very true, and I know it - I’ve studied enough of this subject at university level.
However, in most American English dialects the “a” sounds are much more frontal than in, say, most dialects in British English - for example many Americans would pronounce “aunt” and “ant” pretty much the same way, but most British people would not. So while my “American English” is a sweeping generalization, it hits close enough.
I am pretty confident that the same is true in France. As long as I can come close enough to be within shouting distance of > some > legitimate French take on a name, I’m ok.
This is true as well and I’m all for communicative language use: as long as you get your message across, all is good. However, I understood this thread was on the subject of how to pronounce the names correctly?
Ha, and you were responding to my question!
The problem posed with wine names is that they are so often proper nouns, which behave differently than garden-variety words. I was just trying to figure out whether the last consonant got voiced.
To me there is a fundamental difference between “does the ‘c’ get pronounced” and the more nuanced (and I suspect regionally varying) “is it yak or yuc or yahk or yuhk.”
But I do appreciate your informed responses.
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It’s funny that you pick the example of “aunt,” because that pronunciation is unusually polarized and regional. On the East Coast, most people pronounce at as the English do (like the first syllable in “autonomy”), while in much of the rest of the country it’s pronounced like “ant.”
I think you’re right that American “a” sounds tend to be more frontal, but there are other exceptions, at least with borrowed words. The English and Canadians use a more frontal “a” in the first syllable of “pasta” and “plaza” than Americans. In the case of “pasta,” the Italian pronunciation is somewhere in between the English and American!
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In the half of the East Coast that starts, say, on the Delmarva Peninsula, you won’t find a ton of “taunt”-rhyming aunts. You’ll find a lot of can’t-rhyming aunts.
I grew up in a suburb of NYC and never heard aunt pronounced other than ant, except as an affectation in New England. I think it’s more British. At any rate, to my ear that pronunciation rhymes more with font than with taunt. I apologize to anyone who grew up pronouncing it this way for suggesting that it’s an affectation, but to me the pronunciation was about as rare as tomahto, which I first heard in the Gershwin song.
With “c”, the answer is pretty easy - it isn’t silent.
With “s” it’s much harder, since you have to know if the name is in French or in some other language (like Gascon or Provencal). Often the final “s” in French is just a plural “s” and thus silent (unless followed by a vowel) whereas in Occitan languages it often isn’t silent.
Proper names ending with "t"s are probably the most worst. Normally in French final “t” is always silent, but suddenly you have some random producers whose names you’ve always been pronouncing wrong because the producer comes from somewhere else and of course the final t is not silent because of this.
(And I need to point out that voiced/unvoiced consonants are a different thing from silent consonants - there is no such thing as voiced “c”)
So why are the s’s in Athos and Porthos pronounced, but not the s in Aramis?
I live in NYC and the back vowel “aunt” is very common if not dominant. I’ll have to listen carefully now and see if I can distinguish who uses which vowel. Having come from the West Coast, I’m a bit self-conscious about using the flatter, frontal pronunciation sometimes.
But maybe I just move in posh circles… ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Is not? I’ve always thought they all are pronounced with the final s.
With some googling I learned that Aramis comes from the place name “Aramitz”, which would lead to the conclusion that no, the final s there is not silent.
It may come as a surprise, but NYC + Boston are not the same as “East Coast.” Savanah is East Coast too.
In French films, it is always silent. Here is the pronunciation on Youtube
Finally, as far as Dumas is concerned, the name comes from Courtilz’ Memoires d’Artagnan and that novel gives the name simply as a nom de guerre. Dumas would have taken it as such. The google statement that it comes from some friend’s name is at the least questionable. Dumas may have had such a friend, but his source was Courtilz.
So, apparently, the final s is, as I thought, not silent.
Haven’t seen the French films, so can’t comment them.
Do you here a final s in the youtube I appended? Do others? I do not.
Yes. Clearly
I must be hallucinating. I yield to the judgment of others.
And many NYC and Boston vowels are different.
But I have two good friends from Virginia who use the back-vowel form of “aunt,” so it clearly extends south of the Northeast.
I guess this map explains my Virginian friends, both from the Tidewater area.
But not your New Yorker friends?
I think that map is ridiculously over-simplified