OUR DIFFICULTIES - [ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION]

 OUR DIFFICULTIES - [ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION]

Well, it is naïve to believe that not one of us knows the correct pronunciation of even ‘common’ words in English. Contentions if any on my part, arise from what I see of many; but, I do not assume myself to be an authority on this domain. Rather, I wish to ‘set right’ any misgivings [including of mine] we carry for pronunciation of terms in English. I know it would be a task of sorts to clarify everything in a single write-up. May be we can brush up our skills, in small trickles-as and when situation permits. With this prelude, let me put across a few items for the day’s episode, with the assurance that it would not be a ‘serial effort’, but one that may pop up on and off.  What makes pronunciation a ‘not-so-easy’ item in using English can be ascribed to the basic difference between Indian languages and other languages of the West. In Indian languages letters are used to help the phonetic element [ no unnecessary letter in words], where as in English, words may use letters not expressed or merged to make a new phonetic form. Let us note specific cases.  

Frontispiece

FRONTISPIECE refers to the photo or portrait of an important person appearing in the opening page of a book or journal  as a tribute to the person’s achievement in a specific activity. It has to be pronounced as under:

Fruhn- tuh-spees and not as frontis-- piece.

Another one “Enterprise” to be pronounced-- En-tuh-prize

A well-known term “Immaculate” should be duly respected for its meaning through the most appropriate pronunciation ‘uh-ma-kyoo-leht’ The word itself means, perfect, flawless or spotless which tries to signify perfection.

Yet another frequent expression “Before” can refer to a dimension like physical location “in front of” or as a reference to time frame to signify \precedence’ over some other step as in ‘take the tablet before meal meaning that tablet first and meal only later. It is pronounced “bi-foh”.

A similar item is “because”;it identifies the reason for a  particular effect.

It is pronounced “bikawz” , not the way commonly done by our people.

Another name is ‘Britain’ .By pronunciation it sounds Bri- tn the “o” is not pronounced and ‘t’ and ‘n’ are placed juxtaposed, and ‘t’/ ‘n’ come together ; Similar is the term ‘LONDON’ where the letters “D” and “N” come together with no place for “O” near the closing end of the word. It sounds “Londn”

One more word to suggest some arrangement like meeting is RENDEZVOUS, but pronounced ‘ran-day-voo and not rendes vus as is commonly pronounced.

Thus, several unexpected changes plague the word[s] and we cannot peg our pronunciation to the spelling.      

  Prof. K. Raman