Unpronouncable

Parthenophilus · Post by **Parthenophilus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:29 am

Say out loud:

gererer
tererer
quaererer

Are these words barely pronouncable, or is it just me?

Dingbats · Post by **Dingbats** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 6:44 am

I don't think they're hard to pronounce.

FiliusLunae · Post by **FiliusLunae** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:29 am

I don't think they're hard to pronounce either.
I certainly don't know what pronunciation you follow, but I would think they would sound rather odd, and probably be a bit more difficult, if "r's" are pronounced like in English (retroflex aprox) or like in French (uvular), and if on top of that, the unstressed vowels are reduced to schwa.
However, at least for me, rolling the "r's" like in Italian and maintaining each vowel's quality, those words are rather simple to pronounce.

Why do you say they're unpronounceable?

benissimus · Post by **benissimus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:18 am

Tongue-twisters perhaps, but not unpronouncable.

ptran · Post by **ptran** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:12 pm

How about the imperfect subjunctive passive?

gererere
regerere
referrere

Dingbats · Post by **Dingbats** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 7:24 pm

Well I just can't see what's so hard with pronouncing a lot of Rs and Es. But then my native language uses rolling Rs, but anyway.

Parthenophilus · Post by **Parthenophilus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:20 pm

It's just me then. Trilling rs doesn't come naturally to me, and three rs in a row is impossible unless I go very slowly, and then it sounds ridiculous. Actually, if I say the rs in the English way it's quite easy.

benissimus · Post by **benissimus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:31 pm

It takes a while to get used to rolling R's if you aren't already accustomed to it. My tongue used to ache while reading Latin sentences, but I got used to it by the second or third semester. Of course it doesn't help at all to have a Californian accent.

Be careful not to slur the syllables or overdo the consonants: e.g. it is GEH-reh-rehr, not ger-rur-rur.

Episcopus · Post by **Episcopus** » Thu Mar 24, 2005 10:06 pm

dididi

Psilord79 · Post by **Psilord79** » Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:36 pm

That reminds me of 'aurora'—it's one of my favourite words in Portuguese, but I think it sounds terribly awkward in English.

Ioannes · Post by **Ioannes** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 2:30 pm

Latin words beginning with the letter x are harder to pronounce, e.g. "xiphias"

Weet · Post by **Weet** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:57 pm

New here, and I'm afraid my latin is poor (the reason for my being here!) but these words seem somewhat odd to me. I would imagine that such words with so many repeated syllables would be shortened (haplology) by everyday speakers. English is a good example of this. Only technical terms survive with such duplicate syllables. What do you guys think?

adz000 · Post by **adz000** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:35 pm

Here are some known instances of haplology in Latin, if this aids the discussion. For instance

*nutritrix > nutrix

Parthenophilus · Post by **Parthenophilus** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:42 pm

Ferre looks to me like it used to be ferere. I was wondering if, in practice, words like gererer were contracted in a similar way.

Ioannes · Post by **Ioannes** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 8:15 pm

The Norwegian language has adopted the word referere (from refere) from Latin as a verb.
In present tense of the verb is refererer. Guess that's the same as futurum passive indicative 2nd person singularis in Latin, too, but it's still funny to pronounciate. Although it's not unpronounceable.