Re: Yogh in the news

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On 1/14/06, Thomas Hart Chappell <tomhchappell@...> wrote:
>
>>How does one pronounce "yogh"?
>
>
> Just like it's spelled. :)
>
> I pronounce it /joG/, but I don't know if that's justified
> historically or not.
Chamber's English Dictionary gives the pronunciation as [jQx].

Personally, I usually say [jo:x], but that's probably because I lived in
Wales for quite a time and final -och in Welsh is thus pronounced   :-)

It was, in fact, used in Middle English to represent both the phoneme
/j/, and the phoneme /x/ which had achlaut & ichlaut varieties. But the
Norman spelling of |y| for /j/ (which is acceptable), and of -ugh for
the achlaut & -igh for the ichlaut alas prevailed, and still plague us
in Modern English    :=(

> In any case, most Anglophones don't pronounce it
> that way, since [G] doesn't exist in native English phonology.  I've
> heard all three of  /jog/, /jox/, and /jok/;  I'm assuming the last is
> the one intended for the song, since it rhymes with "oak".
Yep - in England, at any rate, /x/ is commonly pronounced [k]. The major
exception is the painter Van Gogh who is normally (tho not by me)
pronounced as though the last name were written 'Gough', i.e. /gQf/  ;)

--
Ray
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