Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: [tdf-discuss] How to pronounce the name (again, sorry)

On 03/30/2011 03:05 AM, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Italo Vignoli wrote:
>
> > I am not a native English speaker, but I think that "liberty" - which
> > has the same root of libre - is not pronounced as "laiberty". I have
> > heard many native English speakers pronounce libre, and they all
> > pronounce it the same way.

That's not my experience -- at SCaLE, there were at least two different 
pronunciations just from us manning the booth (never-minding the attendees).

> > On 3/30/11 8:37 AM, M Henri Day wrote:
> >
> > > What, pray, is «the English pronunciation of "libre"» ? If the first vowel
> > > is to be pronounced as «aɪ» as in, say, «live», it differs vastly from the
> > > customary pronunciation in almost all European languages - Germanic as well
> > > as Romance - which is much closer to «iː», and can hardly serve as «the
> > > reference for every language»....
>
> I agree with both of you:
>
> Even if  "library" is pronounced differently, I'd like to hear "libre" to be pronounced
> like "Libra", the zodiac balance sign. Unlike to "liberty", the "i" is a long vowel.

My recommendation for what to tell U.S. English speakers who ask for the 
pronunciation of LibreOffice is this:

****
In U.S. English, many people pronounce LibreOffice as "Libre", which 
rhymes with "zebra", followed by the regular word "Office".  But, 
pronounce it how you want.
****

Reasoning:

Pretty much all native U.S. English speakers know of only one way to 
pronounce "zebra", so the description is clear.  "Libra" is suboptimal 
as a pronunciation guide because it has multiple meanings in English 
(the ancient Roman pound, the astrological sign, etc.), each with a 
different pronunciation.  I think it is unnecessarily complicated to 
have to get into which pronunciation of "Libra" one is drawing attention 
to.

Talk of long or short vowels is also bound to confuse, because of 
regional differences in the meaning of "long vowel".  In U.S. English, 
for example, we would say that "liberty" has a short "i", library has a 
long "i", and "zebra" has a long e.  In my U.S. English pronunciation of 
LibreOffice, "Libre" rhymes with the U.S. English pronunciation of 
"zebra" and has a long "e" sound (not long "i").  There are fewer 
English words spelled with an "i" and pronounced with a long "e" sound, 
which is why the word is tricky to pronounce in English.

     ----Jon

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