I paid close attention in my History Of The English Language class (can you believe it was an elective)? But we didn’t study linguistics to much of an extent. Basically the linguistics I know is just barely enough to not get totally lost when reading the “A,E,I…” thread.
So, can anyone explain to me why we (are supposed to) pronounce Sean the same way as Shawn? I can’t figure out how anything in the spelling would prompt the sh sound. This goes for the singer Sade too. I suppose it’s an ethnic pronunciation I’m not familiar with, because were I to say that name, not knowing how it actually is said, I’d probably pronounce it something like Say-did.
There’s an accent in the name Sean, which is rarely used in American spellings. It’s sorta between the e and the a, and I dont know how to spell what it’s called. In any case, the accent told you (in the original Gaelic) that you needed a SH sound. There are other “hidden” accents in Gaelic, some of which have been replaced by letters in the modern form of the language. Hope that helps.
sean is a gaelic name, from ireland, where i am from.
it is pronounced “shawn” because of the accent over the “e”.it is called a “fada”, pronounced “faw-daw” said rather quickly. it elongates the vowel it appears over.
the “s” takes a “sh” sound as every “s” in the irish language does.
without the fada this word is pronounced “shan”, meaning old.
the name “Shawn” is merely an ugly americanisation of the irish name, because they couldnt comprehend how to pronounce the irish version.
mongrel_8 is correct. In Irish (and Scots Gaelic), the letter s is pronounced “sh” when adjacent to an e or an I (the exception being the copula, is, which rhymes with “kiss”). When adjacent to an a, o, or u, the Gaelic s is like the English s.
You’re right on that point, but the fada is actually over the a, not the e, in Seán.
“It’s SPELLED ‘Raymond Luxury-Yacht’ but it’s pronounced ‘Throat-Warbler Mangrove.’”
Or, alternately, “It’s SPELLED ‘Ralph Fiennes’ but it’s pronounced ‘Rafe Fines.’” I wouldn’t mind, if only he weren’t so arrogant and snippy about it . . .
The most imaginative is actor Sean Bean, whose name can alternately be pronounced,
Gosh, thanks! Nice to know that you think my name is “ugly”. Try a little consideration before you make pig-headed statements like that. I happen to like the spelling of my name, and the fact that nobody mis-pronounces it. Just because “Sean” is the preferred Irish spelling of the name does not mean it’s the only correct way to spell it. Anyway, it’s the Irish Gaelic version of “John” just like “Seamus” is the Irish version of “James”.
Seems the Gaelic language didn’t have a “j” sound so they made do and modified names they liked so they’d fit their needs. Just like Americans do.
Besides, having your name mis-pronounced is almost as annoying as dealing with the know-it-alls who think they know the ‘correct’ way to spell it.
Congratulations - your first post and you’ve already managed to annoy another Doper! It took me about a dozen posts before I pissed someone off…Welcome aboard, Onion!
What’s that r doing in there? You say the r but don’t write it? Just the opposite of RP where you write it but don’t say it. Confused is right.
In Hungarian, s is always pronounced sh. To get the s sound, they write “sz.” When they transcribe foreign words with the s sound according to Hungarian spelling, it looks funny. For example, “express” in Hungarian is spelled ekszpresz. That reminds me of nothing so much as the sputtering diction of Daffy Duck.
Sade herself might be a French person but the name “Sade” in French is pronounced almost (but not exactly) like “sawd,” not chah-day or char-day. If they are pronouncing it char-day in France, that’s only becuase that’s how she pronounces it (although I think I’ve heard her say it without the R sound), not because that would be the standard French pronunciation.
How about “Liam”? I cannot tell you how many idiots have insisted to me that it’s pronounced “lamb.” (None of them Irish, of course.)