How to say: Hezbollah
| 14:16 UK time, Tuesday, 18 July 2006
A guide to words and names in the news, from Martha Figueroa-Clark of the 91Èȱ¬ Pronunciation Unit.
"Our recommendation for Hezbollah is hez-buul-AA (stress on final syllable). We've arrived at this recommendation by considering the original Farsi pronunciation, the Arabic pronunciation and anglicised pronunciations in published sources.
In yesterday's post, some of you asked how to pronounce the word orthoepist (a professional pronouncer).
It's not a word we use in everyday conversations but we find it ironic that a word that refers to correct pronunciations can be said in so many ways! These possibilities include: OR-thoh-ep-ist, or-thoh-EE-pist and or-THOH-uh-pist. All these are acceptable but our personal preference is perhaps the last one."
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Comments
It would be great if the Beeb could provide a recording of the day's pronunciation? Perhaps as a little embedded Flash movie?
Would agree with the above point.
actually the pronounciation is: T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T-S
As linguists you know all the pitfalls of trying to write out official pronunciations in something approximating standard English orthography. So why on earth are you not using IPA? I can open a dictionary in nearly any other language and they will give the pronunciation in IPA, so it's not like it's too hard for the average person or something.
The whole point of giving a pronunciation is so that readers can get it precisely. In order to get the precise sounds people are going to have to keep going back to the pronunciation guide anyway, since every home-brewed English-orthography-based spelling alphabet is a little different; as such, you might as well just put it in IPA, where linguists and singers and people who speak other languages will at least have a shot at knowing what it means without the guide.
(You should also change one of your "as in" pronunciations: "pin" is susceptible to the pre-nasal merger of /ɪ/ and /ɛ/, and would be best replaced with "pit" or the like.)
Usually I agree with 91Èȱ¬ pronunciation decison, but not this one. It is certainly not the anglicized Hez-buul-AA but hezb-ULLL-ah with the stress on the double consonant L. Lebanese dont speak Farsi, and they pronounce Arabic words pretty much like modern standard Arabic.
I think that the real issue is whether you pronounce it with that hawking, clearing of the throat sound, that many Isreali commentators use.
with regard to to the pronunciation of orthoepist I was taught at school way back before the government got itself involved in the classroom that the vowels ae and oe sounded as ee so orthoepist would sound as or-thee-pist and not the throat strangling sound the bbc seems proud to produce as correct pronunciation.
So, the 91Èȱ¬ still has a pronunciation unit! Where was it when trouble began in Afghanistan, I wonder.
First, I heard one female on TV refer to it as Arf-garn-istarn, followed by a male who thought it was aff-gan-istarn, then another male who referred to it as arf-gan-istan!
Perhaps the entire Unit was on holiday that week?
Could you tell me why the 91Èȱ¬ spends TV-tax money on this unit when a quick Google search will bring up the correct pronunciation? If the 91Èȱ¬ were a private company it would be bankrupt.
hmmm comments are moderated and will not appear on this weblog until the author has approved them? wow then how come u approved someone saying that T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-T is a correct pronunciation of hezbollah? are u erasing it all that could make lebanese look good and posting all which could make public opinion turn against them? GOOD JOB 91Èȱ¬, WAY TO GO!
then whats the purpose of commenting on anything here? if u modify and chose those comments which suit u best? it sounds very democratic indeed, shall i send a complaint to mr.bush? he is the who gives democracy lessons these days lol
Pronunciation guide w/ sound:
orthoepist would sound as or-thee-pist
No, this isn't one of those oe's (from Greek oi) -- it's two separate vowels, ortho- + -ep-.
I note my 13th edition of Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary gives preference to OR-tho-epist, with or-THO-epist and ortho-EP-ist as bracketed alternates, but 1967 was a while back.
In reply to Miss Justice
I'll bet if they didn't screen the comments they would be full of the very horrid Comment Spam and/or words not usually used in polite society. You know the words that appear in the comcis looking like this: $#!^
Long live the Beeb!