Carsten Burkhardt's Web Project Paeonia - The Peony Library

PEONIES

The Manual of the American Peony Society

EDITED BY JAMES BOYD

PRONUNCIATION OF PEONY NAMES

By A. P. Saunders

Many persons have difficulty with the pronunciation of the French names of peonies. It is for such that the following pages have been written, in the hope that the indications there given may prove of some help. No effort is made here to give the exact pronunciation as it would sound in the mouth of a Frenchman. All that is attempted is to indicate an approximately correct pronunciation, so that even if we do not pronounce the names with the air of having spent our childhood in Paris, at least we may all speak them in about the same way; and we may look forward to a day when we shall no longer hear Le Cygne called "lee kignee."

There is a group of four nasal sounds in French for which we have no notation. They are indicated here by the letters on, an, in, un, always printed in italics. If you can get some one who is familiar with these sounds to produce them for you, you will have no difficulty in imitating them; and that is much the best way of learning them. But for those who have to get them without vocal assistance, it may be said that the first "on" is the sound "aw" made quite short through the nose; the second "an" is the "ah" sound, also short, and through the nose; the third "in" is the short "a" as in "cat" but also pronounced short and through the nose; and the last "un" is approximately the vowel sound in the word "purr," or "fur" also made short, and through the nose. Understand that these nasals are not followed by any sound of the consonant "n." The nasal sounds must be learned by all who wish to acquire even a tolerably correct pronunciation of French names.

A word or two should be said about accent. The French often say that they accent all syllables equally; but since in English we generally let our last syllable almost drop out of hearing, spoken French sounds to us as if the accent were on the last syllables, and we come nearest to a correct pronunciation of French words by accenting the final syllables.

It is this difference in the use of the accent in French and English that makes it so hard for the Frenchman to understand us when we speak his language, or even use an occasional word from it. For instance, the much-spoken name Cahuzac which is here commonly spoken "ca-hoo'-zac" bears in our speech such

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MANUAL OF THE AMERICAN PEONY SOCIETY

a heavy accent on the "hoo" that the rest of the word is almost lost to the ear. When we hear a Frenchman pronounce this name the first and second syllables are unaccented and the main stress seems to fall on the "zac" at the end. And whereas, we are unintelligible to him when we pronounce "ca-hoo'-zac," if we should say "ca-hoo-zac'," though it might be painful to him, he would at least understand.

Accent is here indicated by the sign ' as used above. Thus, pe'-o-ny. Further, in the pronunciation the various syllables are connected together by hyphens because in French the words are run together that way as a series of almost equal syllables with a sharp pull up at the end.

The length of vowels is given by the sign over them, thus a for a short vowel and a for a long one. Thus: "La-dy Bram-well."

I have not aimed at perfect uniformity in indicating the pronunciation. My aim has rather been to use such indications as would lead to an approximately correct pronunciation without too much reading of directions. However, the following list of signs should be familiar to anyone who intends to use the list:

On, an, in, un, the four nasals, always indicated by italics, and always specified after the given pronunciation. The pronunciation of the nasals is given above. The short vowel sounds thus: cat, pet, sit, not,_ but. The long vowel sounds thus: cake, feet, pine, cone, coon, dispute, "ai" is used here for the long a sound before r or n, as in "fair," "rain"; "ay" or a for the long a in other positions, "zh" is used for the soft "sh" sound, as in the words "vision," "derision."

The French words "le" and "de" have vowel sounds similar to that in the unaccented "the" in ordinary spoken English; not the long e sound. Say "the more the merrier" and you will hear the vowel sound in "le" and "de." The same sound exists in the final syllable of "people," and is in fact very common in English speech.

Where a word takes nearly the same form and pronunciation in French as in English, we use the English pronunciation. This applies to such words as Alice, Alexandre, Alfred, Souvenir, Docteur, etc. In these cases no pronunciation is given.

An unusual sound occurs in the names of several German varieties, such as \jycch. The ch in German is identical with the Scotch c h. Say to yourself, "It's a braw, bricht moonlicht nicht," and you have it. This sound is indicated by the c h in italics.

PEONIES

The Manual of the American Peony Society

EDITED BY JAMES BOYD

Carsten Burkhardt's Web Project Paeonia - The Peony Library

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