How does one pronounce Slavic names?

J

Jeff Yu

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I remember once reading an Onion article called "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia". I had a good laugh at it, but it seems to be that it really is true. Tons of Slavic names contain little or no vowels and are seeming impossible for English speakers to pronounce.

Exactly how is one supposed to pronounce names like, Srbljani, Brno, Srpska, Hrvatska, etc? Everytime I try sounding them out, I come up with wierd, tongue-twisting, growling sounds.
 
Insert "i" (or another vowel, but usually the sound "ih," which I use "i" to represent) in the consonants. Many ancient languages (early Egyptian, South Saabean, etc.) lacked vowels and were completely made of consonants. Ancient Punt, for example, was spelled PWNT, which makes "Punt" if you make it "PihWihNT."
 
Yeah, that's really a mystery. But at least, I know how to pronounce Brno and Srpska. :)
 
Jeff Yu said:
I remember once reading an Onion article called "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia". I had a good laugh at it, but it seems to be that it really is true. Tons of Slavic names contain little or no vowels and are seeming impossible for English speakers to pronounce.

Exactly how is one supposed to pronounce names like, Srbljani, Brno, Srpska, Hrvatska, etc? Everytime I try sounding them out, I come up with wierd, tongue-twisting, growling sounds.
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Well, a lot of Slavic names are pretty normal ;)

You mentioned some more complicated words, which can be very hard to pronounce for the people who can't really pronounce R ;) Our "R" is "hard", not "soft" as it is pronounced in English.

Because it is impossible to learn you how to do that (young children often have problems with it), you can use these words with English pronunciation, adding some vowell where it is needed:

Sir-blay-ani, Bernou, Sir-pska, Her-vatska.

Otherwise, you must train your tongues :) There are much more complicated words in Slavic languages - for example "třistatřicet tři stříbrných stříkaček" :lol:
 
To get a better idea about Slavic languages (the Czech in this case), just hear this story. All words start with H, it's actually very funny, and even if you won't understand it (maybe our German colleagues will catch a few words related to their past :lol: ), you can hear the pronunciation.
 
Doesn't -ic become pronounced "ich" (as in the the Eglish "witch" not the German harder one)?
 
nonconformist said:
Doesn't -ic become pronounced "ich" (as in the the Eglish "witch" not the German harder one)?
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Usually if it has some mark to distinguish it (you're reffering to the southern slavic languages and I don't know exactly how they do it), it is "ich"

In Czech, we use Č for "-tch-". The Croats have Ć, I think.
 
I thought his name was to make fun of those Slavic names... :hmm:
 
Hahahhaa,zaista englezima je tesko nauciti slavske jezike.Mnogo lepo hahahaha.Dont try to find a translator you`ll phail mwhahah.
 
Cleric said:
Hahahhaa,zaista englezima je tesko nauciti slavske jezike.Mnogo lepo hahahaha.Dont try to find a translator you`ll phail mwhahah.
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"It's surely hard for the English to learn Slavic languages?"

;) :D
 
One of the big problems with the Slavic languages is the fact that they distinguish palatalized consonants from non-palatalized consonants. So, for instance, Polish has 3 types of s, whereas English only has two (the s at the begining of "snow" and the s at the begining of "shine").

Any Polish-speaker, after hearing just a few sentences of my Polish, knows that I am not from Poland because my pronunciation of the palatalized consonants is on-and-off. I can't consistently get them right.
 
Oj where did you get the translator,or you know the language?

EDIT:Vješto vještica izvještava neizvještene. :p
 
Croatia,still not in the EU,damn Carla del Ponte.
 
Cleric said:
Croatia,still not in the EU,damn Carla del Ponte.
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I thought you are from some southern slavic state. You often use "g" instead of "h" ;) But I don't understand a spoken Croatian, too hard for me ;)
 
At least you can understand a bit,I dont know a word of Czech :lol:

WooT!600th post.
 
Cleric said:
At least you can understand a bit,I dont know a word of Czech :lol:

WooT!600th post.
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Já myslím, že bys to dokázal, s trochou snahy ;)

(for English speaking posters: I know, I know, this is English forum, so pls ignore this post ;) )
 
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