Is it “Camel-uh” or “Cam-ahl-uh”?

  • LalSalaamComrade@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    The issue with English is that it is a non-phonetic language. In English, ‘a’ can sound either like æ, eɪ, ɑː, ɔː, etc. I’m pretty sure a French or a German wouldn’t butcher this name, as their alphabets are pretty consistent in phonetic pronunciation.

    In Devanagari, it is written as कमला (ka + ma + laa), which is the feminine form of कमल (ka + ma + la). In Hindi (at least, not sure about other Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages), every varnmala by default has a short ‘a’ - adding a ा turns this into a longer ‘aa’ sound (क् + अ -> क (ka), क् + आ -> का (kaa)).

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      It’s 'cause we took the letters from Latin, which actually had 5 vowels, and applied it to a Germanic language which, in my dialect, has 17.

      We also standardised the spelling hundreds of years ago, and never updated it, but that’s a sort of separate issue.

  • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    The Indian (Sanskrit) name is pronounced ka-ma-laa (meaning lotus), with no stress, and no gap in between the syllables. The first two 'a’s are pronounced like the ‘u’ in rum, while the last is the same sound but longer (so like the ‘a’ in calm).

    The US Presidential candidate’s name is pronounced the way she likes, which in this case is closer to ko-ma-laa.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Every word has stress. You probably mean the first phoneme is stressed. And the “rum” sound you’re looking for is called the “schwa”

      • Paraneoptera@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Not in classical Sanskrit. Vedic Sanskrit had pitch accent, which had been lost by the classical Sanskrit era. English has stress accent. But many languages do not have stress accent, and either have pitch accent or syllables are not accented at all.

      • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Every word has stress.

        In most Indian languages, most words are unstressed. There is a distinction between long and short syllables, but that comes from vowel length, not stress. A few words (like him-AA-la-ya) do have stress, but this is the exception and usually happens due to conjugation.

        You probably mean the first phoneme is stressed.

        No, kamala is unstressed.

        And the “rum” sound you’re looking for is called the “schwa”

        Yes.

  • Obinice@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Why would you think it can only be pronounced with an “uh” at the end? Where did that come from?

    I could be wrong about how she uses her name of course, but I would pronounce it Cam-ahl-a, nothing the hard a at the end, as in apple.

    We don’t say uhpple, we say apple.

    • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      I don’t think it would be correct to use the A in apple for any of the As in Kamala. It’s more of the A with an open mouth than constrained to the front. The A in calm is much closer imo

      I should really be using the IPA to make my point here but I don’t know all the letters

    • DirigibleProtein@aussie.zoneOP
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      2 months ago

      Why would you think it can only be pronounced with an “uh” at the end? Where did that come from?

      I can’t think of any words that end in the hard a (but I’m willing to learn, hence this post).

      But words that end in the letter a with the “uh” sound seem to be common:

      China Koala Academia Pizza Cicada

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Huzzah does (as do similar words like hurrah), but it’s hard to find a non-stressed version, except for maybe chutzpah