Pronunciations (Re: Does Viktor Krum become an important character?)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 118914


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Paula \"Elanor Pam\"" 
<elanorpam at y...> wrote:

Elanor Pam:

<snip.

> The point of this linguistical crap: Krum can't say Hermione. 
That's NOT his
> fault. His system just can't create certain sounds.
> 
> Elanor Pam, who studied English, Spanish, is studying Japanese and 
shall
> tackle German next year. And that knows she won't for the life of 
her be
> able to make that german "R".

Geoff:
Although I trained as a Maths teacher, I have always been very 
interested in languages and sometime wish that I had studied 
linguistics formally. My friends often comment on my knowledge of 
links between languages and I am that strange English phenomenon, a 
person who can take the Welsh "ll" in his stride.

I did teach some German for some time as an extra subject and one of 
the problems with English pupils is, in addition to the guttural "r" 
to which Elanor Pam refers, is the "ch" sound, which also of course 
occurs in Welsh and Gaelic (Scots).

Coming back to Krum, its not a question of him not producing certain 
sounds, he doesn't /read/ the name properly. He ignores the "i", as 
if it is spelt "Hermonine" after being coached by the lady in 
question at the Yule Ball; I think his earlier rendering as "Hermy-
own" was a bit nearer the mark. Those of us who are old enough to 
remember the great English actress Hermione Gingold would never make 
that mistake. :-)