I found this interesting: There are only four countries on Earth with a one-syllable name.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

To determine how many syllables a word has, you:

  1. Count the vowels
  2. Drop the silent vowels
  3. Subtract one vowel from every dipthong
  4. The number of vowels you have left = the number of syllables in the word

Therefore, Wales has just one syllable.

(Now, whether it is a country or not, I have no freakin’ idea :D)
mmm

62

Chad, Greece, Spain, and France.

ETA: I win.

63

Most people say “Iz-Real” instead of “Iz-Ray-El” so I guess Laos is one of those “It depends” country.

I always say T-Chad anyway, because it’s just so much cooler that way

64

What country’s name has the most syllables?

65

Eire is two syllables? Right.

66

Yes. FWIW anyone I know who has been in Laos has come back pronouncing it “Lao”, one syllable. :slight_smile:

67

France
Spain
Chad
Guam

68

That’s funny, everyone I know who has been in Spain keeps coming back pronouncing it Espana, one syllable I guess.

69

Day-umn! Are you from Texas too?

70

I’ve heard Israel as pronounced as *Iz-Ree-Ul *and Iz-Ray-Al, but I have never heard it with two syllables like Iz-Real.

71

Without looking:
Laos
Spain
Greece
Chad

72

The proper way to say it - with “proper” being defined as “not annoying to actual Israelis” - is Iz-Rail or Iz-Rah-Ale.

73

My guesses would be

Chad
Guam
Laos
Zaire

(but the last two are a little iffy in the vowel department)

74

I thought it was Zaire, too (like zhare) but apparently it is ZYE AIR. Or something.

:mad:

75

Having two vowel sounds doesn’t make it two sillables. Diptongs (sp?) are syllables with two vowel sounds; triptongs have three vowel sounds - but they’re still a single sillable.

Which brings me to the pronunciation of Siam as one or two sillables: if you stress the SI- so much it separates from the -am it’s two sillables, if you pronounce it all together (siam, not see-am) it’s one.
Eire read as if it was Spanish (which I’m sure is incorrect) has two sillables: EI-re :slight_smile:

76

I thought Siam was always si+am.

If it were “sime”, then it would be one syllable…I’m still finding two in Siam…?

77

Not a straightforward question, because do things like “Democratic Republic of the Congo” (eleven syllables) count? Many countries have long, formal versions of their names, such as “Kingdom of the Netherlands” rather than the more familiar “Netherlands”. However, in the case of DR Congo some kind of long form is necessary to distinguish it from the other Congo.
I suppose we could ignore function words such as “the” and “of”, and non-unique words such as “republic” and “states”. In that case I think the winner might be Bosnia and Herzegovina (eight syllables not including the “and”).

78

And just to add that if we take the Anglicised official country name (according to Wikipedia), I reckon the winners are Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (sixteen syllables) and Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (arguably seventeen, depending on how you pronounce “socialist”).

79

France
Greece
Spain I get pretty quickly.

The 4th has me stuck unless it’s Yap.

80

I can’t believe I blanked on France and Spain. Especially since I got Chad and Greece.