Troubling Pronounciation

Jaguar - here the "ua" is a diphthong pronounced something like wah. Same as in the Spanish word agua. You wouldn't say ah-goo-ah, but rather ahg-wah. Same with Jaguar yag-wahr. No one will fault you for pronouncing the initial J as an English J (but it should be a Y sound if we are authentic). Don't go adding an extra syllable when you don't need to.

Zebra is trickier. It boils down to etymology. Here we just don't know. There are two possibilities for the root of the word. One is from Portuguese. If this is the real origin then the UK pronunciation is correct (zeb-bra). However it is also possible that zebra is of African origin (Congolese zibra), and in this case the American pronunciation would be correct - zee-bra.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
Jaguar - here the "ua" is a diphthong pronounced something like wah. Same as in the Spanish word agua. You wouldn't say ah-goo-ah, but rather ahg-wah. Same with Jaguar yag-wahr. No one will fault you for pronouncing the initial J as an English J (but it should be a Y sound if we are authentic). Don't go adding an extra syllable when you don't need to.

Zebra is trickier. It boils down to etymology. Here we just don't know. There are two possibilities for the root of the word. One is from Portuguese. If this is the real origin then the UK pronunciation is correct (zeb-bra). However it is also possible that zebra is of African origin (Congolese zibra), and in this case the American pronunciation would be correct - zee-bra.
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What this also comes down to is what are we looking for - a correct English pronunciation, or a correct 'native' (i.e. original language) pronunciation?

It's in the nature of English (and most languages) to naturalise words - so 'Jag-yu-ar/ah' is fine by me - on the same grounds as 'Pa-riss' and 'Val-en-see-a' instead of 'Par-ee' and 'Bal-enth-ee-a' (to butcher the names of those beautiful cities somewhat!).

(or 'new or-lee-ans' (or 'orl'uhns') being named after 'or-lay-on(nasal)' in France!)

Zeeb- or Zeb- both 'correct' enough for me - though I always use 'zeb-'.
 
We have the same thing here. We call them people from Boston. Best thing to do is make fun of them.
 
Reading up on the Rhotic vs. non-Rhotic it seems that it has to do with adding extra "r's" that aren't really there. I'm getting at pronouncing the real "r's" that ARE there. At any rate, a fascinating, albeit weird, facet of English.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
We have the same thing here. We call them people from Boston. Best thing to do is make fun of them.
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I can't sound the final 'r' on words without turning into Robert Newton. Voice just won't do it.

'Jaguarrrrr, me hearrties!'
 
jbnbsn99 said:
Reading up on the Rhotic vs. non-Rhotic it seems that it has to do with adding extra "r's" that aren't really there. I'm getting at pronouncing the real "r's" that ARE there. At any rate, a fascinating, albeit weird, facet of English.
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My understanding is it comes down to this distinction:

Rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ in nearly all positions, while non-rhotic speakers pronounce /r/ only if it is followed by a vowel sound in the same phrase or prosodic unit.

So non-rhotic speakers wouldn't pronounce the final 'r' unless the next word starts with a vowel ('jaguar exhibit' would have a sounded 'r', but 'jaguar house' wouldn't).
 
jbnbsn99 said:
No clue who Robert Newton is. Should I?
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He was the actor who popularised the 'pirate' voice after appearing in Treasure Island. :)

It's vaguely West Country - which is a rhotic accent! :)
 
I just had to make sure he wasn't a distant relation that I had forgotten about.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
I just had to make sure he wasn't a distant relation that I had forgotten about.
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Would be a good claim to fame if he were!
 
This has gone from a simple thread telling which animal names trouble you to straight-up English class! :D

Tape-uhr, jag-WAHR, zee-bruh, coe-bruh <- the way I pronounce them

Such simple things, words, have such... ugh, it's quite overwhelming that they (pretty much like everything else in the world) have so much more to them than what it seems. I know that doesn't really make much sense, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying. :o
 
Something I was noticing in the pronunciation variations, it almost always seems to center around the vowel sounds and never the consonants. The consonants being the variable between a true ethnic pronunciation versus an "English" pronunciation. I.e. Jag-wahr vs. Yag-wahr. In the jaguar case we have the US vowel pronunciation with the "ua" diphthong versus the UK pronunciation with the "u-a" two syllable non-diphthongic way of saying it.

It's all about the vowels.
 
Problem with pronunciation is the English language itself. We have only 26 letters (one redundant) for over 50 different sounds. Other languages do not have this problem. 1 letter=1 sound. Or in an extreme case 2 letters = 1 sound (ch, sh, etc.).
 
A hard animal for people to pronounce is kinkajou. I used to prounounce colubus wrong aas if the phoenetic spelling was kaloobus.
 
I can honestly say I've never heard Kinkajou mispronounced. I have however seem people refer to them as Columbus Monkeys.
 
My favorite one is to try to have people pronounce the Hawaiian Queen Trigger fish in the local tongue. humuhumunukunukuapua'a
 
I was thinking about others earlier, and whether I am a pronunciation pedant or not. I realized I am not when I decided that it makes no sense any more to pronounce Rhinoceros correctly as rhee-no-Ker-os. I'm drawing the line there.
 
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