April 24, 2008
by Graham
0 comments
I don’t often disagree with John Wells, but I have to make an exception in the case of his blog entry for yesterday (St George’s Day 2008 – 23 April). He says: “In the respelling systems I designed first for … Continue reading
April 17, 2008
by Graham
7 Comments
Traditionally, since the days of Arthur Lloyd James and Kenneth Lee Pike, languages have been divided into two broad types: syllable-timed and stress-timed. French was considered the archetypal syllable-timed language (Lloyd James called this ‘machine gun rhythm’), in which each … Continue reading
April 10, 2008
by Graham
2 Comments
Angshu, in a comment on my ‘Afghanistan’ post, has been critical of my reasoning for recommending the English pronunciation of Afghanistan even to Mishal Husain, who uses a variant that may or may not be an Afghan (whether Dari or … Continue reading
April 3, 2008
by Graham
0 comments
The debate over the pronunciation of Pres. Sarkozy’s name rumbles on. John Wells today seems to be advocating middle syllable stress as the obvious one for English speakers, but he is ignoring the predecents of Mitterrand and Pompidou. He suggests … Continue reading