Language Museum

The title of this post is not a bunch of random letters strung together. It is currently the source of many people’s woes (or extra holiday days, depending on how you look at it).

So it may be best to find out how to pronounce Eyjafjallajoekull, rather than just referring to it as “that volcano in Iceland” (or, perhaps more accurately “that glacier with the volcano erupting underneath…. in Iceland”). You may also impress your friends with the knowledge. Here’s the BBC’s guide:

Eyjafjallajökull (or Eyafallajökull) is pronounced AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl (-uh) , that is -ay as in day, -fy as in few, -oe as in French coeur, -uu as in boot, the -tl as in atlas. The (-uh) is “a” as in ago.

Nope, still can’t say it.

Also worth knowing: Eyjafjallajoekull is Icelandic for “Eyja-fjalla glacier” or “island-mountain glacier”.

A fun article from the Chicago Tribune, listing the top ten mispronounced foodie words. Their list:

1. Bruschetta (broo-SKEH-tah)
2. Gnocchi (NYOH-kee)
3. Gyro (YEER-oh)
4. Huitlacoche (wheet-lah-KOH-chay)
5. Pouilly-Fuisse (poo-yee fwee-SAY)
6. Mole (MOH-lay)
7. Paczki (POONCH-key)
8. Phở (fuh)
9. Prosciutto (proh-SHOO-toe)
10. Sake (SAH-kay)

A number of years ago I worked for a cinema chain and the most common food mispronunciation I heard was ‘jalapeno’ – said as it is written rather than the correct ‘ha-la-pen-yo’. Personally, I’ve struggled with phở, the Vietnamese soup, which is said something like ‘fur/fuh’. And also ‘crepes’ – ‘creps’ rather than ‘craypes’.

This mispronunciation usually stems from unfamiliarity with the word. It’s better to mispronounce it and get to taste the food than be too scared of getting it wrong and miss out on the experience though!

What food names are you unsure of? Have you ever been corrected on your food pronunciation?

I was searching for some information on Spinvox (the company that converts voicemail to text), and it appears they’ve been keeping researchers, and the Great British Public, busy.

In addition to a poll they’ve conducted about grammar, which showed that almost half of Britons have trouble identifying the correct use of apostrophes, another survey revealed that the word “phenomenon” is the biggest tongue twister for a lot of Brits. (It’s pronounced ‘fen-om-e-non’).

Other words in the list include “anaesthetist” which comes in at number 2; “prejudice” (at number 17), and “February” (number 12).

You can see the full list here, along with the phonetic pronunciations of each word.

I have a slight problem with these pronunciations, the first being those for “anaesthetist” and “anonymous”. They show both words being pronounced with the sound “uh” at the beginning, whereas I have always pronounced them with the “an” sound, as this is how they are spelt.

Further, with “hereditary”, the sound I make at the end of the word is something more akin to “tree” than the “ter-ee” that is shown. And “prah-awr-i-tahyz-ing” sounds downright American if you sound it out, rather than the British “pry-orr-it-hyzing”.

So, I turned to the trusty Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for validation. It shows the pronunciations thus:

Anaesthetist – /neessthtist/ – (the funny upside down ‘e’ is an ‘a’ sound such as in ‘apart’)
Anonymous – /əˈnɒn.ɪ.məs/
Hereditary – /hiredditri/
Prioritise – /praɪ’ɒr.ɪ.taɪz/

My last post was about Aramaic, the language scholars believe was spoken by Jesus, making it approximately 2000 years old.

Perhaps even older are the languages of the Aboriginal people, the indigenous people of Australia. The Aboriginals, or Indigenous Australians, are thought to have inhabited Australia for around 40,000 years before the first European settlement. Pre-colonisation, Aboriginal people were part of different ‘nations’ spread all over the continent, each with its own language. There were an estimated 700 dialects and 250 distinct languages, which were as distinct as English, Swedish and Mandarin.

Today it is estimated there are 20 – 50 “healthy” Aboriginal dialects. These are spoken mostly in the Northern Territory. “Healthy” means the language is spoken to, and used by kids.

Aboriginal languages are strongly interlinked with their culture, with ancestral creative beings said to have left languages in the country.

In Aboriginal societies language is not only seen as a form of communication but as a method of right to land, forming boundaries for each family group, and language group. Language is used as social control as it has various forms depending on the ages and status of people within a language group. (Indigenous Australia)

Some elements of Aboriginal language have made it into Australian culture (for example, place names such as Canberra) and gone on to take a place in popular culture. Koala, kangaroo, and boomerang are all things we associate with Australia, generally without knowledge of their Aboriginal roots.

So, perhaps next time you think about Ayers Rock, you could spare a thought for this ancient culture and refer to it by its original name, Uluru*.

*Note: the correct spelling of Uluru has a retroflex under the ‘r’, which I cannot recreate here.