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Re: Noémie and Sidonie (how to pn)
in reply to a message by Mikah
Noémie is pronounced [noe'mi](noh-eh-MEE, not no-ay-MEE, because the sound ay is [ej] and not [e]).Sidonie is pronounced [siδo'ni] (see-doh-NEE).In French, the stress is always in the last syllable.Edit: error in the explanation.Lumia
http://onomastica.mailcatala.com

This message was edited 10/25/2008, 9:56 AM

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Interesting that this site should say no-ay-MEE if that's incorrect. Perhaps it's regional or something? I don't claim to know anything about French though. I only took one semester of it. Although in my accent, no-eh-MEE and no-ay-MEE sounds pretty much the same.Ah, the emphasis is on the last syllable. I thought that might be the case, but I was at least right on the rest.
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Well, that is why the only accurated transcription is using IPA (or, less, other philologic transcriptive systems). In French, a vowel with an acute accent, é, will be ever pronounced [e], not [ε] nor [ej] (or [εj]). The English AY represents a compound sound ([ei]), not simple ([e]): bait, cane; then, AY is not a correct transcription to the Spanish E or the Catalan and French É. (Despite that the English [e] sounds to my ears a lot more open and near to [ε] that the French and Catalan [e], and that is why in my message I explained wrongly the problem with the transcription no-ay-MEE.)
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