Pronouncing "BPAL" and scent names!

[Mrs.Black]

Hi, Witch's Dagger, glad you liked "pal", it also captures the friendly nature of the community. I love your linguistic posts, I'm a linguist myself.

[Sara]

Ok. So. Samhain. I was under the impression it was pronounced "Sam-Hane." So recently I was a little confused when a pompous windbag stated that 'sam-hane' is inproper pronunciation. Is he right, or is he just talking out of his ass (not a first)?

 

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, just wanted a quick answer.

[Penance]

Technically it's pronounced SOW-EN.

 

Or something very similar, but us uncultured Americans say SAM-HANE.

 

~ Penance

[Morrighana]

I just had a mild epiphany, but I could be wrong...does anyone know if the intervocalic consonant in Samhain is a voiced bilabial fricative? That would make SO much sense, in my mind...

[merveilleuse]

i also thought it was 'sah-hane'. my religion professor recently pronounced it 'salmon', though.

 

it sounds different in my head than when i say it aloud, you know?

[TrayLynn]

I just had a mild epiphany, but I could be wrong...does anyone know if the intervocalic consonant in Samhain is a voiced bilabial fricative?  That would make SO much sense, in my mind...

I agree and I would have never thought of that until you pointed it out. It does make sense and explain the different pronunciations.

[Nymph87]

I thought it was Sha-maine...

[amaltheagray]

I just had a mild epiphany, but I could be wrong...does anyone know if the intervocalic consonant in Samhain is a voiced bilabial fricative?  That would make SO much sense, in my mind...

i have NO idea what you're talking about, but now i'm curious. if you have a moment, would you mind explaining? i'm interested in linguistics but lack a great deal of knowledge/skill when it comes to the subject.

[Sara]

LOl!!! It's great to know I'm not the only confused one!!!

[Witch's Dagger]

I just had a mild epiphany, but I could be wrong...does anyone know if the intervocalic consonant in Samhain is a voiced bilabial fricative?  That would make SO much sense, in my mind...

i have NO idea what you're talking about, but now i'm curious. if you have a moment, would you mind explaining? i'm interested in linguistics but lack a great deal of knowledge/skill when it comes to the subject.

Bilabial fricative:

 

bilabial: using two lips (as in 'b', 'p', etc.)

 

fricative: air keeps moving (as in 'f', 'v', 'th', 's', 'sh', etc.)

 

And actually this is an idea I had which I posted in the Pronouncing BPAL thread, because a bilabial fricative would be somewhere between the 'w' sound and the 'v' sound...

 

Edited to add: voiced - you use your vocal cords (as in 'b', 'v', 'd', 'z', etc.)

Edited October 23, 2004 by Witch's Dagger

[TrayLynn]

I have always used an umlaut type of pronunciation like "sow in", but with a very nasal "w". Now I'm going to have to try pronouncing it with the voiced bilabial fricative method like Witch's Dagger suggested making a sound in between a "w" and a "v'.

[minilux]

Hey guys, I'm moving this thread over to "BPAL FAQs", where there's a thread about pronouncing the names of various BPAL scents.

[Morrighana]

And actually this is an idea I had which I posted in the Pronouncing BPAL thread, because a bilabial fricative would be somewhere between the 'w' sound and the 'v' sound...

Ha! So you did! I totally forgot about that conversation.

 

In any case, I do think you are right about 'mh'. I was on crack about it being a glottalic. I still haven't found my notes, though. I think that there is something there about glottalics, I just can't for the life of me remember what at the moment. My brain is so fried...too much damn studying!

[Lugosi]

Just my super-simplified two cents...

 

I've been taught that it should rhyme with "clown" when pronounced correctly.

 

(And that it's also correct to split that pronunciation into two syllables to become "clow-wen.")

[surf-tormented]

If you go by the Celtic language, it is pronounced "Sow-en," or "SOWN", depends what place you are from. People in America tend to call it "Sam-hain" because there is a band called Samhain who pronounce the name that way. That is probably where the first American got it from. We like to butcher nice words!

 

From my experience in Scotland, they pronounced it "SOWN". But their accent does make it sound a bit like "sow-en".

 

My 2 Cents,

Nyx

[Northernminx]

just had a mild epiphany, but I could be wrong...does anyone know if the intervocalic consonant in Samhain is a voiced bilabial fricative? That would make SO much sense, in my mind...

 

I never thought I would hear that outside of class, nevermind understand it....linguist? Or like me are they making you learn this for teaching and/or voice?

 

Although I believe defining the consonant would depend on the context. If we go with the "proper" pronunications given isn't it a different type of sound? voiced bilabial glide? Something? Moo.

[Witch's Dagger]

just had a mild epiphany, but I could be wrong...does anyone know if the intervocalic consonant in Samhain is a voiced bilabial fricative? That would make SO much sense, in my mind...

 

I never thought I would hear that outside of class, nevermind understand it....linguist? Or like me are they making you learn this for teaching and/or voice?

 

Although I believe defining the consonant would depend on the context. If we go with the "proper" pronunications given isn't it a different type of sound? voiced bilabial glide? Something? Moo.

This is also on the pronouncing BPAL thread somewhere... basically, I read that in some places it's "sow-wen" and in others "sah-ven", so when I learned about the possibility of a 'voiced bilabial fricative' and when you think that 'm' is already a bilabial - perhaps the 'h' made it a fricative... That could explain how it became a 'w' or 'voiced bilabial glide' in some places and a 'v' or 'voiced, labio-dental fricative' in others.

[Effluvia]

...do you pronouce all this Lovecraftness? I read some stuff on the different pronunciations of Cthulhu, but how in the world do you pronounce R'lyeh? Or Nyarlathotep?

 

Umm, yeah, I should probably go to sleep, shouldn't I?

[clephan]

Hmm. I'm probably completely wrong here! (but then, I still say 'samhain' as 'samhain'!)

 

R'lyeh - 'ruh-lie-eh' (with a bit of a gap between the ruh and the lie)

 

Nyarlathotep - 'nuh-yar-le-toe-tepp' (only kind of slur the nuh and the yar together)

 

It probably doesn't help that most CoC games I've played have never once used the *names* of any of the beasties we meet... or where they live!

[tart]

Is Lampades supposed to sound fancy? Or is it like lamps + lemonade = lampades?

[rainbow]

I've been saying it Lamp-ah-dees, though that could be really, really wrong.

[Stephanie]

Wow..this thread is super interesting to me. I always wondered why and how Samhain is pronouced SOW-WEN. Internally, I pronounce it like it's spelled--"SAM-HANE". But it makes sense that Samhain is pronounced differently because it's Celtic--a totally different language. That's obvious to me now.

 

Thanks for the info! I was always intrigued by linguistics.

 

 

(edited for typos)

Edited November 7, 2004 by Stephanie

[surf-tormented]

I am not sure about the proper pronunciation of Ulalume. Anyone help me or guide me to a link? I would guess "oo-la-loo-may" or" oo-la-lume", but maybe I am WAY off.

Edited November 15, 2004 by Madame Nyx

[Penance]

Even though no one's asked, I'm just tossing my two cents in on pronunciation of one of my favorite scents...I figure someone out there is probably wondering and, besides, it makes me sound all smart and sophisticated to know how to pronounce it.

 

Loup Garou is pronounced LOO GAROO, but I have a tendency to pronounce it the way it looks, even though I know the correct French pronunciation.

 

My french is very rusty...very rusty indeed.

 

And, on a side note, it should be hyphented rather than two words, but that's beside the point...I'm rambling now, so I should go to bed...

 

And on the subject of Ulalume...I always said OOH-LA-LOOM. But, then, I could be entirely wrong.

 

*Edited because apparently my English is rusty, too. *

Edited November 17, 2004 by Penance

[zapevaj]

...do you pronouce all this Lovecraftness?  I read some stuff on the different pronunciations of Cthulhu,  but how in the world do you pronounce R'lyeh?  Or Nyarlathotep?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Answer: you don't.

 

No, seriously. Apparently Lovecraft just made up his Ooky Thing names by smashing random letters on the typewriter- like going askjhfdjhsd on a keyboard. He never actually intended them to be pronounceable, because part of the whole thing about them is that they are Names That Must Not Be Said. And anyway, they aren't part of any human alphabet, so you'd probably have transliteration problems attempting to write an Elder God name in English. The whole pronunciation issue only came up much later, when his books got fans and they started trying to talk to one another about his books. Kind of like Autechre (an electronic-music group). So people can try to deduce proper pronunciations all they want, but there is no original correct pronunciation inherent in Lovecraft's writing.

 

I actually have no documentation for this; it's just something I heard from several people, and it makes sense. Grain of salt, and all.

 

-Rae