Language desk
< June 11	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 13 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 12

Pronunciation of Polish surname in mid-20th C. Paris

I'm preparing a typescript for recording by an Israeli anglophone narrator, obliging me to verify pronunciations of foreign toponyms and personal names. How would a 1930s-1940s Parisian pronounce the Polish immigrant surname Borowicz, and stressing which syllable? -- Deborahjay (talk) 15:27, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It would depend on how much the Parisian knew or cared about Polish pronunciation, but probably they would aim for an approximation using sounds and patterns of emphasis native to French, as if it were written "Borovitche" in French, or [bɔʁɔ'vitʃ], with a slight emphasis on the last syllable. Marco polo (talk) 19:48, 12 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that's helpful. I wasn't able to extrapolate from my personal experience growing up in the heterogeneous urban USA (Brooklyn, New York and Los Angeles) with a common, monosyllabic Germanic surname whose local pronunciation had been anglicized long before my own grandfather's arrival. Paris at the time in question had at least two generations of immigrants from Slavic-language countries, some prominent in artistic and intellectual circles. With what we might presume as the hegemony of the French language in its hometown, your explanation seems likely. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:31, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Additional question + apology for using WP:RD/L as a linguistics MOOC again.

In BrE (in its Home Counties form) and The Mother Country's antipodean convict offspring, Schwartz (surname) is pronounced as /swɔːts/ instead of alternatives like */swæts/ or */swɑːts/. The reason for this is the phonotactics of those varieties of English, yeah? Is "phonotactics" the right term here? Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 09:18, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Surely, /ʃwɔːts/ rather than /swɔːts/, Pete. ~~And no, I'd say it's the phonology rather than the phonotactics.~~ /wæ/ and /wɑː/ are possible sequences in English (consider "swam", and one of the pronunciations of "quark"), even if they are less common than /wɒ/ and /wɔː/). --ColinFine (talk) 11:56, 13 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On further thought, I take that back: it didn't occur to me to think of it as phonotactics, but I realise that the word does fit. My observation about the pattern not being universal does not take it into a different domain. And in fact, there is further phonotactics there: in most of the cases where /w/ does not round a following low vowel, there is a velar consonant following: "whack", "wag", "swag", "quack", "quark", "swang". But there are exceptions both ways: "swam" and "wham" have unrounded vowels, while "quag" and the other pronunciation of "quark" have rounded. --ColinFine (talk) 11:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't think that vowel length was distinctive in English, ColinFine; if indeed it isn't, then why /ʃwɔːts/ and not plain /ʃwɔts/? -- Hoary (talk) 13:44, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, ColinFine, let me introduce you to what I like to call the "Snitzel [sic] Syndrome". This occurs when someone mispronounces a word, then respells it according to their mispronunciation. Stereotypically, at least among the non-cognoscenti down here, schnitzel gets called "snitzel", and that's exactly how it often appears on menus and billboards. But surely this is not confined to us ex-cons; lots of German "schn-" and similar words get the "sn-" treatment in AmEng and elsewhere, e.g. Schneider becomes "Snyder", Schwarz(enegger) becomes "/swɔːts/(enegger), schnozzle morphs into "snozzle", and so on. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:50, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, what? Was the stuff after "e.g." all supposed to apply to American English? We wouldn't drop the R in Schwarz or Schwarzenegger, except in New England and maybe parts of the South. --Trovatore (talk) 04:37, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes those come from Dutch though, not German (or some other Low German dialect that has also lost the schn- cluster). I don't know if that's what happened with the pronunciation of schnitzel, but that's why we have the different last names Schneider and Snyder. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:38, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Snyder is Dutch. There are more people of German ancestry than any other in the US, and most German names get treated pretty well here. The Schultzes across the street from whom I grew up only spoke English but their name was pronounced properly for German, all the way down to the pull vowel. μηδείς (talk) 00:47, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I knew a Schnatmeier who pronounced it /sn–/, but am not aware of any other AmEng examples. —Tamfang (talk) 07:13, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I knew a woman named Kadlaček, and when I pronounced it that way she yelled, angrily, "No, it's 'Cadillac'!" Rob Schneider is unfortunately Rob Schneider. I have never once heard snitzel. μηδείς (talk) 19:11, 17 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've known a Frenchman of Polish ancestry with a surname ending in -wicz, which he said French people usually pronounced [-viks]. So, in this case, it would be [bɔʁɔ'viks]. Sort of like a Polish Astérix character. — Kpalion^(talk) 15:51, 15 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]