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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> Pronunciations2
        
(Message started by: Phil98122 on May 19^th, 2005, 2:20pm)

Title: Pronunciations2
Post by Phil98122 on May 19^th, 2005, 2:20pm

I have been reading some math history and was wondering if anyone can write out how to pronounce the following names

1. Picard
2. Lebesgue
3. Stieltjes
4. Tchebychev
5. Dirichlet

Thanks in advance.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Barukh on May 20^th, 2005, 4:04am

I'm not sure, bit here's how I pronounced some so far:

Lebesgue - Lebeg
Stieltjes - Stil't'yes
Tchebyshev - Chebeeshev
Dirichlet - Dirihle

I'm sure you can find a lot about this on the Web (and from native speakers, although there is not always an agreement).

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Michael_Dagg on May 20^th, 2005, 10:28am

1. Picard : Pa-kard, like the captain on Star Trek.
2. Lebesgue: Lee-Beg, like the name Lee and a street begger
3. Stieltjes ; Steel-chiz, like the man of steel and chiz that rhymes with wiz (as in mathwiz).
4. Tchebychev : Cheb-ee-chev, Cheb rhymes with web, ee as in the letter e, chev like a chevy truck without ee.
5. Dirichlet : Der-ick-lay, Der rhymes with sir, ick rhymes with pick, lay as in the potato chips.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Icarus on May 20^th, 2005, 3:48pm

It can depend on how the name comes to you as well. I had a Russian professor in college, and it was always a bit odd to hear him pronounce Pythagorus as "PITH-a-GORE-os" (short vowels except for the first o), where I had always heard it as "pie-THAG-or-us" before. I have since realized that his pronunciation is closer to the actual than the one I had grown up with.

The pronunciations I know are the same as Michael's, except I learned Picard as "PI-card" (short i, as in "pit").

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Sjoerd Job Postmus on May 20^th, 2005, 4:40pm

on 05/20/05 at 15:48:10, Icarus wrote:

Wasn't it Pythagoras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras)? At least, that's the way I learned it. Same pronounciation as you, accept "us" vs "as"...

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by StonedAgain on May 20^th, 2005, 5:35pm

This is a good tread. I have wondered for a few years if I was saying them right - nope, I wasn't. I thought Picard was Push-shard. Michael, how about these as you did the others

Haar
Dirac
Legendre
Frobenius
Weierstrass
Liouville
Lipschitz
Liapunov
Poincare

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by rmsgrey on May 21^st, 2005, 6:40am

My variants (those with an * I'm less certain of):

Picard - Pick-ar(d) (like the ST:TNG captain)

Lebesgue - l'-bayg (the"luh" sound like when you sound out words followed by "bay" with a g on the end)

Stieltjes - ??? (I don't pronounce this at all)

Tchebychev - Cheb-ee-chev (as Michael_Dagg)

Dirichlet - di-rish-lay ("di" as in "dick", rish rhymes with -ish and lay rhymes with bay - actually, I pronounce it more like Barukh, with an aspirated(?) 'h' but this, in the absence of formal phonetic notation is probably clearer for English/US tongues)

*Haar - Hah (as in "hah hah")

Dirac - dee-rack (dee as in fourth leter of the alphabet, rack as usual - rhymes with stack)

Legendre - l'-jh-on-dra (the same "luh" as Lebesgue, then a phoneme I can't think of an actual occurence of in English, "on" as in "con" and "dra" as in "drag" (maybe "dru" as in "drag")

*Frobenius - frow-been-ee-us ("frow" rhymes with "throw", "been" with "seen", "ee" as the letter, and "us" rhymes with "fuss")

Weierstrass - vi-er-strass ("vi" as in "violin", "er" rhymes with "sir", and "strass" with "crass")

Liouville - lyoo-vill (rhymes with "you vill" as in a bad German accent in a war film "you vill answer my questions")

Lipschitz - lip-sh*ts (as it looks)

*Liapunov - lee-ap-oon-ov ("lee" as in "sleep", "ap" rhymes with "chap", "oon" with "spoon, and "ov" with "of")

Poincare - pwon-car-ay ("pwon" rhymes with "won", "car" with "scar", and "ay" as the first letter of the alphabet)

As a general note, the pronounciation of these names by anyone other than a native speaker of the name's original tongue is likely to be at least a little off. And the attempts to render the names phonetically are liable to be slightly further off...

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Icarus on May 21^st, 2005, 7:27am

on 05/20/05 at 16:40:16, Sjoerd Job Postmus wrote:

Wasn't it Pythagoras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras)?

Sorry - that was a typo induced by thinking out the pronunciations.

Actually, the more I think about it, I believe my professor's pronunciation was closer to "pi-tha-GORE-os". While the "pi" (s was emphasized more than "tha", it was definitely less than "gore".

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by towr on May 21^st, 2005, 1:26pm

on 05/20/05 at 10:28:29, Michael_Dagg wrote:

3. Stieltjes ; Steel-chiz, like the man of steel and chiz that rhymes with wiz (as in mathwiz).

Stieltjes is Dutch isn't it? Then that's not the way it's pronounced..
Of course it's near impossible to pronounce anything Dutch in English :P

st
il (as in the french word for he, so a shorter 'ee' than in steel)
t
y (as the y in you)
uh (or just pretend it's not there at all)
s

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Another Aggie on May 21^st, 2005, 2:08pm

Michael's pronunciation is correct when it comes to saying it without a slight accent on the L, which really has some slight sustain on the L but is hard to put in English well, as in stēl'chiz, which is the same as steel-chiz.

One must remember that the proper pronunciations of surnames rests upon who has the name not on what we might think is the correct pronunciation.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Sjoerd Job Postmus on May 21^st, 2005, 2:42pm

on 05/21/05 at 13:26:10, towr wrote:

Stieltjes is Dutch isn't it? Then that's not the way it's pronounced..
Of course it's near impossible to pronounce anything Dutch in English :P

Well, just checked, and yes, you're right. Didn't even know it was, shame of me! Don't really know how to translate into english, though.

I think it's a bit like steel + tjes, with a short 'ee'-sound. The 'tjes' sound, would be a bit like the 'jus' from 'just', but with a tj sound in front. I think... Are we allowed to make audio samples? Way to tempting. Just that my voice isn't well suited for this, I have a bit of Frisian accent when it comes to pronouncing dutch words.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Michael_Dagg on May 22^nd, 2005, 6:45pm

Having done mathematics for about 50 years and, with fluency in several languages, I can safely say that my pronunciations are correct with or without imposing a written accent. The basic problem is, as Icarus mentioned, how these names are delivered to you in the first place. Naturally, if you are a mathematics/science major you will eventually become exposed to them in some form and furthermore it is only sensible that you should be able to state them within some variation of their originality.

My surname is pronounced Dae or Day, surprisingly, and is so because there is no general way of accenting it herein. So, you'd never know otherwise if not informed.

While several of the pronunciations in the second batch of names are closely correct, there are several that are not. One of the names therein has historical sexiness that is somewhat interesting but actually has nothing to do with mathematics at all. But, the pronunciation given is fairly close but this is simply due to the fact that it is someone's variant, which is certainly natural and by all means OK.

I leave it up to the reader to determine what name that is.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Another Aggie on May 23^rd, 2005, 5:07am

Yes, that is a sexy name. I recall that there are some funny stories about it but don't quite remember where I've read it.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by towr on May 23^rd, 2005, 7:56am

on 05/21/05 at 14:08:16, Another Aggie wrote:

Well, being Dutch myself, I do claim some knowledge of how typical Dutch names are pronounced.
And unless Americanized (or otherwise adapted to a new language), 'tj' is not 'ch' (which would be 'tsj', which you don't really have in Dutch, except from foreign or Frisian influence)

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by towr on May 23^rd, 2005, 8:04am

on 05/21/05 at 14:42:10, Sjoerd Job Postmus wrote:

I have a bit of Frisian accent when it comes to pronouncing dutch words.

Och ja, ik vergeet steeds dat hier nog meer Nederlanders, zelfs Friezen, rondlopen :P
Hehe, moet ik goed oppassen wat ik allemaal zeg.

Quote:

Are we allowed to make audio samples? Way to tempting. Just that my voice isn't well suited for this

Of course. You can attach pretty much any sort fo file, as long as the contents is legal ;)

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by towr on May 23^rd, 2005, 8:14am

Here's a pronunciation guide for a selection of mathematic(ian)s.

http://waukesha.uwc.edu/mat/kkromare/up.html

Whether it's any good, I'll leave up to people that think they know what it ought to be.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Grimbal on May 23^rd, 2005, 9:19am

Anybody dare to give a try at "de Broglie"? ;D

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Deedlit on May 23^rd, 2005, 2:43pm

Speaking of which, we had "Grzegorczyk" from another thread...

"Grothendieck" also has an unusual pronunciation.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Michael_Dagg on May 23^rd, 2005, 3:40pm

on 05/23/05 at 09:19:55, Grimbal wrote:

Anybody dare to give a try at "de Broglie"? ;D

A student showed me this dictionary link today and I tried de Broglie and a few others in it and they came back right. I noticed it also gave some specific language variants too which is a plus.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0400578.html

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Sir Col on May 24^th, 2005, 4:03pm

We can only guess how the ancient Greeks pronounced their words, but Pythagoras (see attached image for Greek form) would probably have been pronounced: pu (long u, like ue/ü in German, or a little like, poo) thag orass (short o, like the o in hot, and a slightly rolled r).

I'd love to know how Dijkstra is pronounced.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by towr on May 25^th, 2005, 2:54am

on 05/24/05 at 16:03:19, Sir Col wrote:

I'd love to know how Dijkstra is pronounced.

Ah another Dutch name. Although.. hmm it might well be Frisian, which makes a difference for how his last name is pronounced. Notably whether the 'ij' is a short I, or a short E. (The problem is it's written Dutch, in Frisian it ought to be Dykstra) Around here I always encounter it as the first option, but Wikipedia opts for the latter pronunciation. dEX-trah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_Dijkstra#Pronunciation)
But note that the r should be a rolling r, your tongue should vibrate.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Ajax on May 25^th, 2005, 11:19pm

After request, I visited this thread and I must say that I've never even tried to wonder how to pronounce correctly several mathematicians names, as they are almost riddles by themselves... (try to pronounce a Polish name by only reading how it's written and you'll know what I mean; a former football player of my favourite team was called Krzysztof Warzycha...)
Anyway, about Pythagoras: First of all the first syllable (Py) is not read as Pie, but rather as Pee. Spell the word pi like in the alphabet and you got it right. Actually, the greek letter pi is also spelled like that, which means that the same goes for the well known number. The second (tha) and last (ras) have no difficulties and are spelled as they are. The problem is with the third syllable. You see it's not a gee. In greek we have the combined consonants gamma kappa and gamma gamma which sound like golf and taph zeeta which sounds like george. However, here it is a gamma alone which gives a sound pretty close to "wonder" or "world" or a gargle ;D. It's really difficult for me to explain this one...
Finally, there is the accentuation. If you see Sir Col's image of the name written in greek, there is an accent over the vowel o. This means that in conclusion, it should be read as Pee-tha-go-ras and not as Pie-tha-go-ras
I hope I have helped a little bit. The difficult thing is to explain the letter gamma, which gives a unique sound. I'll post in a while an image of how Pythagoras would be written in greek if it was as it is assumed to be by the english speaking

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Ajax on May 26^th, 2005, 12:11am

I hope this will help a bit. Something else:
It's not Delta, it's The-lta, with "the" exactly like the article.
It's not Beta, it's Vee-ta, with "vee" like the you pronounce the letter v in the alphabet.
It's not Lamda, it's Lam-tha, with "tha" like "the" mentioned above.
I know there are difficulties, as there are in any foreign language. I was once speaking with a chinese student (I think his name in latin could be written Du) and he told me his name. Each time I tried to pronounce it, I was instantly corrected by him because according to him I was saying a totally different word, just by not achieving the correct depth of the vowel.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Sir Col on May 26^th, 2005, 3:42pm

Ajax, I notice from your profile that you are from Greece, but I imagine that your pronunciation is relating to modern Greek? I have studied koine Greek for many years and I don't understand why u would be pronounced ee? There are occasions when 'i' can be short and sometimes long, and this is something that needs to be learned; there is no rule. Consider a parallel in English: intrigue, the first i is short, the second i is long. For example, in Greek, bios (life) would be pronounced beeos (long i), whereas philos (friend) is pronounced filos (short i).

I have also been taught that the accent only adds a slight emphasis on the sound; scholars believe that a grave (\) would represent a decreasing pitch, whereas the acute (/) would represent an increasing pitch; the circumflex represents a slight rise and fall in pitch.

I also learned that omicron is a short o (as in hot), whereas omega is a long o (as in low).

[e]Edited to say that I found this interesting link which compares modern Greek with ancient Greek pronunciation:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A216073[/e]

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Ajax on May 27^th, 2005, 1:03am

I must admit that what I wrote was how modern greeks speak and pronounce. ;D
Moreover, in modern greek we don't distinguish differences between different i's; no long or short, just ee. :P
As for the accents, yes in ancient greek there were three accents, more or less like in french, although I don't really know their differences (I did ancient greek in school, but not as much as I should and I didn't have then the appetite to learn).
About u: we call it eepsilon [I use ee so that noone may confuse the sound with i (e.g. life), e (e.g. method) or y (e.g. why)], which means "thin ee". So you understand that it's an ee. However, if there is "ou" it sounds like ou (once again I cannot give you information if it's long or short, you'll have to hear someone speaking to understand).
As for the importance of the accent, I give you an example in the image.
Finally combinations of vowels give other vowels. In case that we have two vowels one after the other in a word, but want them to sound as they usually are, we put a symbol over the second one, which is called dialitika (meaning diaeresis in punctuation, looks like in ü in german). I give some examples.
Once again, I admit that it's impossible to fully understand the sound of a language only by the text. I didn't know that there were such phonetic differences between greek and ancient greek (One must listen to it). Every language evolves through time (not always for better...). Koine helliniki (common greek) that you've been learning is the "version" that was spoken from the Hellenistic times (right from Alexander the great) and after as a common and formal idiom. Before then, every region had it's own idiom. Nowadays, there are still some idioms in Greece and it is concidered that Cypriots (from Cyprus) and Pontii (refugees from Trapezounda, in Turkey) speak idioms very similar to Koine helliniki. So, if you would like to find more about the "hellenistic" way of speaking, you should ask a Cypriot (we make fun of their accent but don't tell them ;D ).
I hope I helped a bit. If you want to listen to more greek, come to Greece (Hellas as we call it). If someone ever come, please inform me and I will be glad to be your guide (no charge ofcourse ;D ) I've already done it for friends and relatives from abroad, so I have some experience. Only, don't come this year, as I'll have to do my service in the army (yes, here it's still compulsory ??? )

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Ajax on May 27^th, 2005, 1:16am

To find more about about the evolution of greek, just google something like:
history of greek language

You might also like to visit:

http://www.mfa.gr/english/the_ministry/filoglossia/

and

http://www.translatum.gr/dics/gr.htm

and

http://www.hcc.gr/

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Sir Col on May 27^th, 2005, 1:35am

Thank you very much for the information Ajax. I've often wondered about the differences between modern Greek; I may yet ask many more questions. ;)

I am certainly no expert and I've not fully digested all the rules for syllabifying words, but I can suggest how these words may have been pronounced in ancient Greek...

The diphthong oi is sounded like (b)oy and chi is sounded like lo(ch), so "wall" would be pronounced toy-chos.
Delta is sounded d, and the diphthong ei is sounded like (w)ei(ght). So "keen" would be pronounced day-nos.
The diphthong ai is sounded like ai(sle), so "child" would be pronounced pie-dee.
The diphthong eu is an awkward sound, but a little like the sound that people make when they don't like something: e-oo. So "happiness" would be pronounced e-oo-too-chee-a.
Interestingly zeta is sounded z unless it is followed by a vowel, in which case it is sounded zd. So "to build" would be pronounced kata-ske-oo-azdow (with ow being sounded like (l)ow).
Like modern Greek I believe that the diaeresis (two dots above a vowel) overrides a diphthong sound and forces the vowles to be sounded separately. So "divine" would be pronounced th-eh-ee-kos, rather than th-ay-kos.
Eta is a real tricky one and many scholars disagree over the sound, but I go for the same sound as the diphthonh ei=ay. So "charitable" would be pronounced el-eh-ay-moan.

As I mentioned in a previous post, no one can be certain about the sounds, but I generally use a mixture of what scholars call the Erasmian and a reconstructed New Testament Greek.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Ajax on May 27^th, 2005, 2:19am

on 05/27/05 at 01:35:36, Sir Col wrote:

The diphthong oi is sounded like (b)oy and chi is sounded like lo(ch), so "wall" would be pronounced toy-chos.

Delta is sounded d, and the diphthong ei is sounded like (w)ei(ght). So "keen" would be pronounced day-nos.

The diphthong ai is sounded like ai(sle), so "child" would be pronounced pie-dee.
The diphthong eu is an awkward sound, but a little like the sound that people make when they don't like something: e-oo. So "happiness" would be pronounced e-oo-too-chee-a.
Eta is a real tricky one and many scholars disagree over the sound, but I go for the same sound as the diphthonh ei=ay. So "charitable" would be pronounced el-eh-ay-moan.

Ok, I think you shouldn't get so confused.
Don't forget the diaresis:
Child may be Pedhi, but not Piedee (rib!)
It's tee-hos
It may be dinos (like dinosaur which means keen lizzard), but I doupt

Be careful:

on 05/27/05 at 01:35:36, Sir Col wrote:

Like modern Greek I believe that the diaresis (two dots above a vowel) overrides a diphthong sound and forces the vowles to be sounded separately. So "divine" would be pronounced th-eh-ee-kos, rather than th-ay-kos.

In all the above mentioned examples that I gave, there is no diaresis.

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Sir Col on May 27^th, 2005, 2:44am

The diaeresis is the two dots above the second vowel (like the German "umlaut"), and it appears in the 7th, 8th, and 9th words you gave. In ancient Greek this means that the diphthong (vowel combination) should be sounded separately.

Remember, the pronunciations I've provided are based on standard scholarly thoughts on how ancient Greek would be sounded. I remember one teacher explaining that some of his Greek friends objected to the way he pronounced certain sounds and argued that ancient Greek should be taught with a modern Greek pronunciation. However, most of these sounds, which I already mentioned have been heavily influenced by the renaissance scholars, such as Erasmas, are based on documents found in other languages of which we are more certain of the sounds. In these documents they make reference to the sounds of the Greek language and use their own phonetic system. Even though it is "educated guesswork", there is general agreement on the pronunciation of ancient Greek.

I found this website which provides some guidance on the pronunciation of ancient Greek, although it is based more on classical (attic) Greek than common (koine) Greek.
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~ancgreek/ancient_greek_start.html

Also check out:
http://www.ibiblio.org/koine/greek/lessons/alphabet.html

Title: Re: Pronunciations2
Post by Ajax on May 27^th, 2005, 4:24am

Sir Col

Nice links, thanks.
So, are you now able to understand greek, or does it still seem to you like greek? Can you read?

If so, there are prints of ancient tragedies with the left pages containing the original text and the right ones the translation.

Anyway, I cannot debate on the subject of how to pronounce koine Helliniki as I have no knowledge.