Re: OT: Another French name pronunciation question

To me the name looks vaguely Slavonic. Maybe an emigre from the East? In one
of George Orwell's books there's a funny episode where he's telling the
story of a French waiter (I think) called M.Merdes, which the gentleman
always followed by the phrase "of Spanish descent" obviously hinting that
his name should be pronounced /merdez/ as opposed to /merd/ which you would
have taken to be the appropriate way to say it! Is there an embarrassing
word in French that "Niepce" might have sounded like originally (it is an
anagram of "ce pine" after all). I'm not sure who Niepce was, but having
vaguely heard of him, I had a feeling that the first was grave rather than
acute.
Mike




Even French people make orthographic mistakes, especially since quite often
proper nouns have various spellings, which don't even necessarily follow
actual French orthographic rules (for all I know, Niepce could very well be
pronounced /njEs/! Silent preconsonantal p's are not that uncommon). But
"Niépce" still does strike me as a strange and unexpected spelling. When
did the man live?

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.



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