Beautiful explanation, Fred. Let's polka in northcentral Texas! (Gotta get there first.) Patty -----Original Message----- From: poland-roots-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:poland-roots-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Fred Hoffman Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2008 10:12 AM To: poland-roots@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [POLAND] Name Hi, Debbie Greenlee wrote: > Question from a non-Polish speaking Pole. > I thought the letter "I" in Polish was pronounced in English as ee. > Therefore I thought Ste;pniak (Ste~pniak) was pronounced "STEMP > neeyak" > or did I miss a Polish pronunciation rule? Good question! I wish I could give you a simple answer, but it's a little complicated -- unless you grow up speaking Polish. Then it's the most obvious thing in the world. In Polish, the vowel I serves a double purpose. When it's a true vowel, it is pronounced roughly "ee." But it also serves to indicate palatalization of a preceding consonant. Palatalization is a kind of softening of a consonant, when more of the tongue arches up close to the hard palate. It's not a linguistic feature that's terribly prominent in English, but it's very important in the Slavic languages, including Polish. (We have it in English, too, however. It explains, for instance, why most people turn "Got you!" into "Gotcha!" The influence of the following Y sound modifies the T into its palatalized counterpart, which we spell CH.) In the name STEPNIAK, the I is not really pronounced as a distinct E sound, because there's already a vowel in that second syllable, the A. In that position, the I is palatalizing the preceding N. So instead of "STEMP-nee-yock," three syllables with a distinct "ee" sound, it's more like "STEMP-n'yock," just two syllables, with a slight Y sound after the N. The I is not pronounced as "ee," it only serves to soften the N -- which, in practical terms, comes down to producing a kind of Y sound after the N, like what we hear in "onion." With some consonants, the distinction is pretty subtle. There's not a huge difference between palatalized B and plain B. If you say the verbs _bic~_ (to beat) and _byc~_ (to be), the vowel is different, but the B itself doesn't seem to change a whole lot. With some other consonants, the change is more obvious. Thus a palatalized T turns into CI, a D becomes DZI, and so on. Palatalization is why the name of the city Poznan~ doesn't sound like "POZE-nahn," but "POZE-nine." The palatalization of the final N not only softens it, but also affects the pronunciation of the A. In that case, the palatalization is indicated with an accent over the N. But notice, as soon as you add an ending with a vowel, the -I- creeps in there: Poznania, Poznaniu. With the letters C~, N~, S~, and Z~, the accent is there only if the palatalized letter is not followed by a vowel. As soon as vowel enters the mix, the accent disappears and is replaced by I. Sometimes the I serves both purposes at once. Thus in the place name Limanowa, the I not only indicates a palatalized L, it also gives that syllable its vowel: "lee-mah-NO-vah." Incidentally, here is where the distinction between slash-L and plain L comes in. Slash-L can never be followed by I in native Polish words because Poles don't combine the "w" sound of slash-L with the "ee" sound of the vowel I. You can have L~Y together and you can have LI together, but you can never have L~I or LY. It's just one of the characteristics of the language. (Whereas in English, we have no trouble at all following the "w" sound with an "ee," as in our word "we," or following L with a short I, as in "lid." But we're not Poles!) I'm kind of hesitant to go into this in much detail, because it can get confusing very fast. I may already have left you asking "What on earth is he talking about?" But as a basic rule of thumb, when you see the vowel I followed by a consonant, pronounce it as "ee." When you see it followed by a vowel, ditch the "ee" and make it a slight "y" sound. So if you see a name such as STE~PNIK, it's "STEMP-neek." But STE~PNIAK is "STEMP-n'yock." And that little Y sound is pretty faint -- you may not even hear it unless you're listening for it. It's there, however, and it has to be there to pronounce the words correctly. You might find the Pitt Polish language course's explanations useful: http://polish.slavic.pitt.edu/firstyear/sounds.pdf Then again, maybe not. It's awfully hard to truly "get" this unless you listen to native Poles speak the language. After a while you start to catch on to the rhythms and sound combinations. At that point, you'll say "Of course that's how it is." if you don't have a chance to hear a whole lot of Polish spoken (as, for instance, in northcentral Texas), it's going to have to be one of those things you accept on faith. If anybody can explain this more clearly, by all means, speak up! Fred ********************************* Need to contact the list manager? 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