Jean-François Colson wrote:
>>>pronounced. It is spelled "Ghyslain", and from what little I know
>>Je dirais plutôt [ZislE~]... (Cough!) ;-)
> That's right, but in Belgium there's a town (near Mons) named Saint-Ghislain
> and I've always heard it pronounced [sE~gilE~]. Is that an old or an
> alternative pronunciation?
Funny! :-) [gilE~] sounds very much like [vilE~] "vilain" = ugly. But now
I remember that I've already heard about a woman named [gilEn]. On TV, I
just see that first name spellt "Guilène". (Odd!)
On the other hand, I've never heard about any [gilE~] but only about
[ZislE~] although "gh" is always pronounced as [g] like in "ghetto". (Very
bad example but I know no other word with "gh".)
>>I'd rather say [ZislE~] where [E~] represents the sound you can found in
>>french words like "fin" [fE~], "brun" [bRE~], "vain" [vE~], "vingt" [vE~]
>
> or
>
>>"à-jeun" [&:jE~]. (That's all the orthographies for [E~].)
Error! I meant [a:ZE~]... (Should have re-read this!)
> For me brun is [bR9~] and brin is [brE~]. Then if there's shit on the grass
> you can get un brin brun [9~ brE~ br9~]. ;-)
> And "a jeun" (Why did you write it with an hyphen?) is [aZ9~] for me.
YAFPT! Yet Another French Pronounciation Thread! ;-)
I'm french and I can't hear the difference between [E~] and [9~]. Maybe
because of my local accent? And I'll never use "brun" to talk about shit but
"marron" [maRO~]. "Brun" is used only to describe hair and skin. (YMMV) In
my mouth, "un brin brun" sounds [E~ bRE~ bRE~] and a bit silly. ;-) I
think that French keeps on evolving and some differences disappear, like [a]
vs. [A] and [E~] vs. [9~].
I used an hyphen to keep the 2 words "à" et "jeun" on the same line and I
think there should be one.
See ya,
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Remi Villatel
maxilys@normandnet.fr
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