Speaking 'properly' or not

[richard_smedley]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, dungrollin wrote:
>  
> An entertaining thread... And we haven't even started on Welsh or 
> Scottish place names... How about Auchtermuchty? Or for the very
> brave, 
> Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch..? 
> (It's best to only attempt the correct pronunciation with a really
> bad throat infection - sadly, I heard that it's been officially 
> shortened to Llanfairpwll.)

It always was Llanfairpwll, until the railways came. Then the 
good townsfolk wanted a gimmick to bring in the visitors, and 
settled on a silly name. Quite a harmless bit of parochial PR,
really. :-)

Welsh is an entirely phonetic language, unlike English. Once I've
taught my English friends to pronounce our alphabet, they've had
no trouble with 
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch. :-)

Have a google around, there should be plenty of sites telling you 
the letters of the Welsh alphabets - some of them should have
sound files. Make sure you get a gogledd (North Wales) one, they
don't speak properly in the south ;^)

In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Ladi lyndi <ladilyndi at y...> wrote:
> I agree, this has been a very interesting thread.  And, we 
> also haven't gotten into some of the other languages we may
> attempt to speak.  When I first heard how I was supposed to
> pronounce "sch" in Dutch, I informed my husband that I was
> always taught a lady didn't make that sound.  For those who
> have never heard it, think of the sound made when people reach
> for phlegm in their throats getting ready to spit. 

I do find that one hard =o)
In the war if the Dutch resistance suspected a new recruit
of being a German infiltrator they would swing the conversation
round to the point where the suspect had to pronounce 
Scheveningen. A non-native *never* gets this right and in
that particular case, this would lead to acute lead-poisoning =o/

[snip]
> Still can't quite grasp the whole change of vowel thing yet
> but then, I'm still using the slang I used in the 70s.  LOL

Well, most of us still use bits of 20s slang (`bee's knees'),
and a read through most Dickens novels will unearth slang
phrases still in use today, so if you stick to 70s-speak
you must be positively modern ;-)

 - Richard

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