One of those “just curious” questions. For those not familiar with him, he’s a very busy Slovenian born/U.S. raised character actorwho usually plays sleazy or corrupt authority figures, though I first noticed him (and thought he was really cute) as the young radical bisexual priest in Mass Appeal with Jack Lemmon. He’s almost a stock company actor on HBO series* (OZ, True Blood, Big Love). On imdb it says he said his first name is pronounced ‘jel-ko’ but imdb can be less reliable than wikipedia in terms of accuracy (the biography section is reader edited) and that’s not sourced, so I’m just curious.
I pronounce it "ZYEL-jko Ee-VAH-nek. Is ‘jelko’ closer? Is the emphasis on the second syllable of the last name?
*Trivia: DEADWOOD creator David Milch said that had the show lasted another season Ivanek would have joined the cast as a medicine salesman and con-man who turned out to be John D. Rockefeller’s long lost father (who, improbable as it may seem, really was a con-artist who showed up in Deadwood. Good casting, as Ivaneklooks a bit like Rockefeller.
The Z with caret is, IIRC, normally the /[sub]3[/sub]/ sound of Jacques or pleasure. The J palatalizes the preceding L, which is rendered with something very akin to Spanish LL – a sound halfway between English L and Y, so to speak.
I’d hear it as ZHEHL[sup]y[/sup]-ko EE-vahn-ehk, with the L[sup]y[/sup] symbolizing that non-English sound.
Ivanek rhymes with ‘colonic’ evidently, but Željko isn’t quite Jelko or Zelko or even Zyelko is it? (Gads, but wouldn’t you love to have 12¢ for the number of times he’s had to spell that.)
I don’t speak Slovenian fluently, but my family is Slovenian and our last name has the z with the haček in it. It’s pronounced almost like a “dz” that comes out like a “j” if that makes any sense. Almost like “Jelko” but with a subtle d sound in the front. Essentially the “ge” of garage.
It’s ZHEL-ko. The “L” has a palatalization in it, as Polycarp explains. (Although isn’t “ll” pronounced “[j]” (the “y” in “you” sound) in most dialects of modern Spanish? I thought it was only historically palatalized, but I could be wrong about that.)
It’s the same palatalization that occurs in the capital’s name: Ljubljana. It’s not a sound that exists in English, but can be thought of as the same sort of process that turns an “n” into “ñ”, but done with an “l.”
Anyhow, back to the first syllable. A carat over the letters in Slavic languages basically moves the place of articulation back in the mouth (from alveolar to post-alveolar) in this case. Put simply, it’s similar to adding an “h” in English to these letters. “S-carat” is “sh.” “C-carat” is “ch.” “Z-carat” is “zh.” (Then you also have the “r-carat” in Czech, which is not post-alveolar, but also indicates a raising of the tongue in articulating that phoneme.)
There shouldn’t be any “d” sound in it. It should be a pure “zh” sound. You can see a list of Slovenian phonemes here. Note the spelling and IPA pronunciation for “življènje.” It’s a clean “zh” like the “si” in “vision.” A sound that has the “d” in front of it does exist in Slovene, but it’s spelled “DŽ.” I believe that letter combination is only used in words borrowed from other languages, though.
The “ge” in garage can be pronounced “j” or “zh” in standard English. The standard “j” sound in English can be rendered phonetically as /dʒ/ – it already has a “d” sound in front.
“Should” doesn’t always govern how people pronounce their names. Just ask Brett Favre.
I knew a guy in Berlin from (then) Yugoslavia with the same first name.
He pronounced it “Jellco” and the only way I could first remember it was envisioning the sign at the top of the Jello Company building.
I knew a Russian spy in Berlin (long story, I was his English teacher at a private school) and his name was, supposedly, Ivan Ivanovich. He pronounce his first name as “e-vahn” and last as “e-vahn-o-vich”. Don’t know if that helps with the last name you are referring to.
I speak some Slovenian and the way he pronounces his name seems a bit americanised. This isn’t neccesarily surprising as I would probably do the same if I were to introduce myself in English (even common names sound different in different languages; a name like Rob would be pronounced quite differently in Dutch compared to English and I think most dutchmen would use the English version when talking in English).
anyway, it is definately a zh (at least I gather from this thread this is how you write down the sound that is appropriate; I would say zj, but whatever). Also, if I saw this last name I would stress the first syllable and not the second one; maybe that’s the difference from being fluent in Slovene and not.
Sorry. Of course “Zeljko Ivanek” can pronounce his name any way he pleases. I’m just saying what the rules in Slovenian would be for the pronunciation. Also, the way he pronounces his name in the clip does not have the “d,” either. I pronounce my last name “Pawinski” as “puh-WIN-ski,” but it should be “pah-VEENy-ski” (and it is, when I speak to Polish speakers.)
My tendency is to stress the penultimate syllable in Slavic names, but that’s due to Polish, where the penultimate syllable almost always gets the stress. Slovene (I only speak a little of it), has variable syllable stress patterns, and usually the stress lands on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable. I don’t know where it would be in “Ivanek,” though. My guess would be “ee-VAH-nek,” but I don’t know with any degree of certainty.
