[Facts] Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine
in reply to a message by JHK
The correct pronunciation is [mely'zin], which in the respelling pronunciation used in this site would be may-luy-ZEEN. Since the standard English language has not the sound [e] excepted in the diphthong [eI], represented by the group AY in the key guide, and since most of the English speakers hear [eI] as [e] (that is why they rhyme "no way, José"), that is why the more approximate respelling would be with "may" and not with "me" (which according to the key represents [ɛ], open-mid, and not [e], closed-mid).JHK's option (me-luy-ZIN) was not correct in relation with the first [e] and the [i], but absolutely accurated for the stress and the sound [y]. On the other hand, Shaymin's option (may-lew-zeen) was correct with the [e] and the [i] but wrong for the sound [y] and the stress.(And since in French mélusine is also a noun, and not only a name, it has been very easy to check the IPA transcription in a good dictionary with phonetic transcriptions.)The only reliable way to transcript sounds is with IPA transcription. Any other system will be failed because it will be always based in a language to represent sounds of another language, which means two big problems:
a) some sounds will not have representation (as [e] or [y] in English);
b) other sounds, different but close, will be mixed up (as the English S and the Spanish S).That said, I agree with JHK that this site's key is not perfect (several sounds of my native languages are not in it), neither non-IPA key is, but it is a coherent and reasonably comprehensive key (it includes a representation for [y], for instance). And, most important, since it is THE key of THIS site, the non-IPA transcriptions should adhere to it. If someone thinks that it can be improved, then send a message to MikeC with the proposal, in a constructive way.Lumia
http://onomastica.mailcatala.com
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Messages

pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  Isobel  ·  8/21/2009, 4:42 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  JHK  ·  8/22/2009, 2:18 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  Shaymin  ·  8/22/2009, 7:12 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  JHK  ·  8/23/2009, 1:54 AM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  Kirke  ·  8/23/2009, 12:08 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  JHK  ·  8/23/2009, 12:47 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  Shaymin  ·  8/27/2009, 2:02 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  Kirke  ·  8/23/2009, 2:55 PM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  JHK  ·  8/24/2009, 1:24 AM
Re: pronunciation of Melusine?  ·  Shaymin  ·  8/27/2009, 2:07 PM
Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Lumia  ·  8/24/2009, 4:00 AM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  JHK  ·  8/24/2009, 7:32 AM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Shaymin  ·  8/27/2009, 2:09 PM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Lumia  ·  8/30/2009, 7:02 AM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Shaymin  ·  8/31/2009, 3:48 PM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Lumia  ·  9/1/2009, 1:06 AM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Shaymin  ·  9/1/2009, 4:28 AM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  JHK  ·  8/30/2009, 10:26 AM
Re: Proper French pronunciation of Mélusine  ·  Isobel  ·  8/29/2009, 9:21 PM