Troubling Pronounciation

AnaheimZoo

AnaheimZoo

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Is anyone else baffled when it comes to pronouncing the name of some species? For me, there are two in particular:

Sifaka (Shee-fack, shee-fah-kuh, si-fah-kuh?)

Lechwe (Lech-way, lech-ay, leech-wee?) :confused::confused:

I just pronounce them phonetically, the way I see them. Si-fah-kuh and lech-way
 
It's not just you. I'm going with si-fah-kuh too, even though shee-fack is probably correct. I think si-fah-kuh is more fun to say.
 
I go with lek-wee for the latter.

The one I used to have trouble with is the duiker, but in the end I settled for die-ka, the other I used to use was doy-ka.

Scientific names often become a problem with me pronunciation-wise, for example the Idea leucone. I used to pronounce the latter part as lee-oo-cone, but the 'e' is stressed whenever I hear others say it, so it becomes 'lee-oo-cone-ee'
 
Javan Rhino said:
I go with lek-wee for the latter.

The one I used to have trouble with is the duiker, but in the end I settled for die-ka, the other I used to use was doy-ka.

Scientific names often become a problem with me pronunciation-wise, for example the Idea leucone. I used to pronounce the latter part as lee-oo-cone, but the 'e' is stressed whenever I hear others say it, so it becomes 'lee-oo-cone-ee'
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I'd go doo-ka.

Loo-co-nee

Letch-way

And shif-ah-ka
 
DavidBrown said:
It's not just you. I'm going with si-fah-kuh too, even though shee-fack is probably correct. I think si-fah-kuh is more fun to say.
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It depends a little what you mean by 'correct' - 'shi- fakh' is probably closest to the Malagasy but that does not necessarily make it the correct English pronunciation - very few would pronouce Paris 'Paree' when speaking English, for example.

That said, I'm a hateful little pedant who tends to say 'shi-fakh' and 'fana-lokh'. Not quite accustomed myself to 'foosh', so I'm also inconsistent. But I'm only human!

Duiker is definitely 'die-ker', never heard it said any other way by anyone who works with them - it's from an Afrikaans word meaning 'diver' from the way they dive into the bushes when approached.

I've always said 'lech-wee' just as spelled.


Javan Rhino said:
Scientific names often become a problem with me pronunciation-wise, for example the Idea leucone. I used to pronounce the latter part as lee-oo-cone, but the 'e' is stressed whenever I hear others say it, so it becomes 'lee-oo-cone-ee'
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Well, for a start it's actually Idea leuconoe ( ;) ) - I would always say 'loo-coh-noh-ee' but scientific names are such a hodge-podge of different languages that so long as what you're saying is recognisable it doesn't really matter.

The only exception to this, I would say, is when someone's name is included then this does have a correct pronunciation. The usual pronunciation of Fuchsia and Dahlia always grate with me a little on these grounds.
 
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Maguari said:
Well, for a start it's actually Idea leuconoe ( ;) ) - I would always say 'loo-coh-noh-ee' but scientific names are such a hodge-podge of different languages that so long as what you're saying is recognisable it doesn't really matter.

The only exception to this, I would say, is when someone's name is included then this does have a correct pronunciation. The usual pronunciation of Fuchsia and Dahlia always grate with me a little on these grounds.
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Of course it is, maybe a good note to self: Always check spellings :D

Generally pronunciation doesn't concern me too much, I try and get it right where I can but like you say, if people know what I'm on about I'm not too bothered.

Another one is Reticulated, now I can pronounce that as it is but I know somebody who shortens it to 'retics' when talking about his pythons. He pronounces it as Ret-ix, I for some reason always miss out the 'e' and go with r-tix. By all means he should be right, but the stressing on the 'e' never seems to sound quite right to me :p
 
"Douc" as in Langur...still unsure i pronounce that right.

I use "Dook"..

Or is it..

"Duck"?

"Dock"?

Or none of the above? :(
 
Duiker is one of the hardest words I've come across to pronounce correctly (and I have to say it several times a day). To pronounce it correctly it is not die-ker but closer to day-ker with the day pronounced with a slightly rounded mouth.

Lechwe can be pronounced letch-way or more correctly lee-kee.

Sifaka is correct with shi-fahk. In Malagasy (pronounced Mala-gash) the final vowel is dropped and S's are a sh. So Fanaloka is Fanalok and Fossa is Foosh.

Douc I believe is duke (or dook).

Idea leuconoe if we use traditional Latin pronunciation would be Ee-day-ah loy-co-no-eh. All vowel pronounced with the eu forming a dipthong oy.
 
Here is another one I hear mispronounced a lot: Nyala. It is not nye-al-ah, but en-ya-lah. It is the same as Impala except the naming gods decided to put the I in from of M'pala. Nyala probably should be written N'yala or Inyala to avoid confusion.
 
You say shee-fack and I say si-fah-kuh,
You say foosh and I say foos-ah,
Shee-fack, si-fah-ka, foosh, foos-ah,
Let's call the whole thing off!
You like nye-al-ah and I like en-ya-lah,
You like lech-way and I like leech-wee,
Nye-al-ah, en-ya-lah, lech-way, leech-wee!
Let's call the whole thing off!
 
@ David Brown - brilliant!

How about fossa which apparently is pronounced as if it should be spelled foosa?
 
DavidBrown said:
You say shee-fack and I say si-fah-kuh,
You say foosh and I say foos-ah,
Shee-fack, si-fah-ka, foosh, foos-ah,
Let's call the whole thing off!
You like nye-al-ah and I like en-ya-lah,
You like lech-way and I like leech-wee,
Nye-al-ah, en-ya-lah, lech-way, leech-wee!
Let's call the whole thing off!
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He's off on a sing song again!!


Sloth.

is it 's-loth' (as you spell it) or 'slow-th' for pronounciation?

I go with sloth myself
 
hadrada said:
"Douc" as in Langur...still unsure i pronounce that right.

I use "Dook"..

Or is it..

"Duck"?

"Dock"?

Or none of the above? :(
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I say it like "dock", but I doubt it's the right way. I never really paid that one mind, but now that you brought it up I remember that that's one I meant to post as well. :p
 
jbnbsn99, thank you for the information! I had no idea about the Malagasy (or Malagash, now, as I've been told :)) ways of pronunciation! No wonder Thane Maynard called it a shi-fahk on the Cincy Zoo videos...

I especially didn't know that it was prounouned en-ya-lah! I myself called it a nye-ah-lah, but then again every normal zoo-goer just calls it a deer! :D So they are N'yala and M'pala, correct? As you suggested, it should be spelled Inyala to avoid confusion; is that what they did with *IM*pala?

Thank you for the VERY helpful information, jbnbsn99! Glad I started this thread! :D
 
General rule of thumb with most African pronunciations, is the word starts with an N or an M before a consonant the N/M is pronounced as its own syllable. Such as Mpala, Nyala, Nbebele, Nnamdi Asomugha, Nkosi, etc.
 
"Jaguar" - when i was young I said 'jag-yoo-ar', but then on the TV Show "Wild Kingdom" I heard Marlin Perkins calling it 'jag-wah'. And over the years since I've heard it called both.

How about "Tapir"?

Again, I've always said 'tay-pee-yah', but other say 'taypeer' or 'taypuh'.

And - as no-one has mentioned it yet - I'll make passing reference to the words cobra and zebra: in the UK (and Australia) it tends to be 'cob-ra' and 'zeb-ra', while in the USA it's 'coe-bra' and 'zee-bra'.

:p

Hix
 
I always imagine that the correct native pronunciation for Jaguar would be 'Hag-wah.' I just say "Jag-yoo-ar" though :p

As for cobra and zebra, I'm half and half, it's a 'zed-bra' [with the 'd' almost silent, just because the letter 'z' has the 'd' sound at the end of it I think is why it's there], and 'Coe-bra.'
 
Do the Brits not pronounce the final R's on words? Like Jaguar or Duiker. This is English and not French after all :)
 
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