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YANN EN-GA-LAND

In comparison with highly inflected languages, English grammar is not that difficult, though idiomatic usage, which transcends grammar, is a complex matter. But English pronunciation, in contrast with, let us say, French pronunciation, can be bewildering, sometimes bearing little or no relation to how the word is spelt. And whether a "c" is sounded like "s" (cell) or "k" (cat) simply has to be learned. Thousands have honed their English pronunciation on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ World Service. Foreign names are the bane of the English: I remember that after several unsuccessful attempts Trevor Bailey gave up in despair in his effort to pronounce Muralitharan's name.

Wouldn't English be a much more interesting language if it had more cases and inflections and diacritical marks? Compare English with a language such as Finnish, with 17 cases and marked letters.... exotic!

Since i don't see how this blog has no place in this blog, i'd like to comment that... interestingly, the problem seems to lie in sharing the same alphabet with other languages. I mean, we are capable of reading Norwegian as if it were English, whereas Greek, Russian and Arabic speakers probably have a better go at using one standard approximation to the original (Norwegian in this case). they read whatever is transliterated into their language as a phonetic imitation of the norwegian sounds. The Greeks for instance would have the J in Jan represented as a gamma-iota, to represent the english yyy sound.

Cheap ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ attempt to get people interested in the UN and their role in Middle East politics. Otherwise, no one would ever have heard of this non-entity.

I thought the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ The Pronunciation Unit had been disbanded. When listening to the majority of newsreaders, on 'News 24', I dispair at the poor pronunciation. Sometimes one has to wait to the end of a sentence to work out just what meaning was intended.
My complaint about the newsreaders, on 'News 24', is the incessant replacement of 't' with 'd'. We get Briddish, id (no not Freudian they really mean 'it'), thad, god (perhaps the sun or moon god - no they really mean 'got'), gedding, ged,liddle (or simply 'lil'), lod, Peeder (Peter),
....I go on and on. Just listen for just a short while to News 24 and you might find it just as irritating as I do. Here in Yorkshire we have an accent but I don't hear anyone who pronounces words like this.
Matthew Amroliwala is, I think, the best of all the newsreaders. One of the women, whose name I don't know, would sound more at home on CNN.

Further, when will the Newsreaders learn a bit of simple Spanish so that they can pronounce names like Jose, for example, correctly.

How do you say Jan Egeland? "I-M-B-E-C-I-L-E." If he actually cared about the humanitarian consequences for the ordinary citizens of Lebanon, he would add his voice to those demanding that Hezbollah end its attacks on Israel immediately, comply with Security Council Resolution 1559 by disarming, and disband so that Israel's security concerns could be resolved and the humanitarian relief effort could begin at once on a massive scale. Instead he calls for safety corridors which will likely be ineffective at facilitating delivery of aid to most of those who need it worst and will equally as likely have to be shut down almost immediately once Hezbollah starts exploiting them for their own terrorist purposes. Not very bright at all Mr. Egeland but what more would I expect from an appointed employee of a would be international government.

As I said in the Javier Solana discussion, there should be a quick-flick ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ (online) handbook for editors, newsreaders, etc., with one pronunciation which attempts to get as near to the original without confusing the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ employee who has to say the name on air.

I believe that the Norwegians leave the "d" off the end of "Egeland" when saying it. So maybe YARN AY-ger-lan. But his name should be on a list with the simplest of phonetics, if it isn't already. Phoning the Norwegian Embassy is a time-consuming business.

Pronunciation is not grammar. It's just the way to get the name across, in a consistent way, to us viewers and listeners. People who start talking about diacritic marks should know that most British websites and publications ignore them, and inflections (conjugation, declension) have nothing whatsoever to do with pronunciation.

There should be a handbook, as I said, with one, unequivocal pronunciation giving all those people that come up in the news such as Solana, Egeland. But especially important are all those names that, when written, are transliterated from other alphabets (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Russian) and writing systems (e.g. Chinese) and appear not to be standardised for the newsreaders to use.

Sorry pronounciation unit.
"D" at the end is heard in Norwegian - it is "New-Norwegian" that can have it silent at times...

E is open as in "Egg" - same with "g" and second "e"

"~land" - means "country" / "county" - like "England" and "Scotland" with again the same "a" as in "land" in English.

So soften the "gg" in "egg" (Eggeland would be another name - and pronounced just as "egg"+e+land") - make the "E" longer, and add to that "land"

If you speak German, you will be able to read most Norwegian names as they come. E.g. Y is always a vowel, hence "J" is used as indicated in "Jan" - or in English the name is written as Ian, and same as Jan or Janette - from the Latin god Ianus.
You will also speak clearly every syllable, with equal weight. Straight forward - so why make a mess?