Chepálova and Medvedéva

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Here we go again.
Not only Russian tennis players suffer, but Winter Olympic athletes as well.

I'm not asking you (non-Russian native speakers only!) which one of the names of Russian female skiers (see the subject) is pronounced correctly (the first one is correct, the second one is incorrect), but I'm asking you - why?

What made NBC and CBC sports commentators believe that Chepálova is Chepálova, but Medvédeva is Medvedéva?
What's the difference, to the English native speaker, between these two names?

Comments

[ilya1.livejournal.com]

Well, the "o" in "Sharapova" looks like a long vowel to the English eye, since an "o" followed by only one consonant would usually be long in English. It doesn't sound natural to pronounce it like that if it's next to the stress. So either Shárapova or Sharapóva sounds normal, but not Sharápova.

On the other hand, English tend to make the opposite mistake when pronouncing "Nabokov," which everyone here thinks is "Nábokov." So maybe I don't really know what I am talking about.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

None of your comment jibes with the way I (native English speaker) pronounce written words. An "o" doesn't become long if followed by a single consonant, and Shárapova" is actually much harder for me to pronounce than "Sharápova".

I did a quick Google search, and came across this this page (http://www.ingilish.com/englishsyllablestress.htm), which says that in English, words of three or more syllables are stressed on the penultimate syllable if that vowel is long or a dipthong, and on the antepenultimate syllable if it's not. That would explain why English speakers seem to like "Sharapóva".

To the OP:

I wouldn't use announcers' pronunciations of foreign names as a good way to judge how English speakers in general would pronounce them. If you've heard a name before, you can overcorrect or only partly correct the pronunciation that comes naturally to you. You could easily get chaotic pronunciation that doesn't resemble the rules of English pronunciation very much.

[ilya1.livejournal.com]

It is the general rule in English that a vowel becomes long when followed by a single consonant that is between two vowels. (That's what I left out; if the single consonant is final, the vowel is short.)

Take these examples (from Mark Rosenfelder's article (http://zompist.com/spell.html) on English spelling:

25. Vowels are pronounced long before an intervocalic consonant (rate, mete, fine, rote, cute = rät mët fïn röt küt).

26. They're short before two consonants (baffle, held, children, rotten, butler), or before a final consonant (pat, pet, pit, pot, but = pât pêt pît pôt bût).

I (also a native English speaker) can't think of all that many exceptions to this. Anyway, it does make sense that the stress would be on the penult if the penult is long. The vowel-length rule explains why it would be (incorrectly, in this case) assumed to be long.

It seems like "Sharápova" is only pronounceable if the "o" is reduced to schwa. You may be right about "Shárapova," though - — although "STRESS-unstress-stress-unstress" feels natural to me, I can actually think of any words that have it. (For some reason the example that keeps coming to mind is "bottleholder," which isn't even a word.)

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

That's what I left out; if the single consonant is final, the vowel is short.

I feel like smacking myself in the forehead because I was so confused by you leaving that out. You can just write me off as another internet idiot.

I (also a native English speaker) can't think of all that many exceptions to this.

I can think of quite a few, but eh. It's English spelling; it's supposed to be full of exceptions. I'm having trouble of thinking of any that aren't from Latin or French or prefixed.

[ilya1.livejournal.com]

Well, the rule genuinely doesn't make sense without the second half.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

No, but I was aware of the rule, so I should have known that was what you were talking about. =)

[gnomygnomy.livejournal.com]

"Gladiator?"

And all the examples I can think of against #26 rhyme with "mold" and "bind." I wonder if this exception is a rule in itself? It probably is and I probably missed it.

[ilya1.livejournal.com]

Should be "can't actually think. . ."

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Basically it comes from Latin, I believe, as Latin has almost the same stressing rule. But Russian, not being Latin-derived at all, doesn't have such a rule. I don't know exact stressing rules in Russian, but if it ever exist, it should be VERY complex and inconsistent, as correct stres may appear just everythere. ^_^ For example loanwords are usually stressed as in original language, but after some time stress tends to migrate... The only sure way, I believe, it's just to memorize it.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to think that in Russian (specifically in Russian names) the stress position is determined mostly not by phonetic rules (syllable/vowels relative positions and such), but by morphological ones (what is the original word root, the gender of that root, etc.)

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I also have such an idea, but never was able to express exact form of this system -- memorizing was actually easier. ^_^

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

> I wouldn't use announcers' pronunciations of foreign names as a
> good way to judge how English speakers in general would pronounce them

All right. And what is a better way to judge then?

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I'd ask people who hadn't heard the name spoken before and aren't familiar with Russian.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
It would be very interesting to know.

May I suggest some additional names for you liitle survey?

Kozlov
Kozlova
Korkin
Korkina
Kuz'min
Kuz'mina
Kulikov
Kulikova
Potapov
Potapova
Kadochnikov
Kadochnikova
Shostakovich

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you gonna ask the people... You're not, aren't you?
If so, I could probably do that myself.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Oops. I wasn't volunteering to do a survey, I was just suggesting how you could find out. If you'd like to do the survey yourself, linguaphiles would be a good place to post it.

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

I'm too lazy to go to some other communities.
I'd better do it myself "on the street".

[b0bb.livejournal.com]

On the second thought, I think I'm too lazy for that either.