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The pronunciation of "e"

de 69UM24OSU12, 2009-junio-13

Mesaĝoj: 10

Lingvo: English

69UM24OSU12 (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 04:18:47

Just how do you say this letter anyway? There seems to be quite a bit of variation among various sources in the way the pronunciation is instructed:

A Complete Grammar of Esperanto (Ivy Kellerman, 1910)- "e as in fiancé, like a in fate"

This is the first book I used and this is the way I've always pronounced it but later I encountered:

Teach Yourself Esperanto (J.H. Sullivan 1957)- "e as in there"

Being Colloquial in Esperanto (David K. Jordan 1992) "e as in bEt, bEll"

Those e sounds are all very different (at least in the U.S. midwest)

Esperanto- Learning and Using the International Language (David Richardson 1988) devotes a long paragraph to it:

"To get the sound of e really right do this: Place two fingers lightly across your mouth (as a lip reader might do) and say "they" very carefully. Feel how the lips and jaw shift position midway through the "ey" sound. that's because in English, the sound of "ey" is really made up of two sounds: "eh" followed by "ee." Now practice saying just the "eh" sound, without sliding into the "ee" sound. That is how you pronounce "e" correctly in Esperanto."

And, as I sat with my fingers across my lips, trying to identify the midway point and avoid "sliding," I wondered: It's one of the most basic things...Why is there so much variation? Has the recommended pronunciation changed over time?...and...How the heck do you properly say "e" anyway? I know that spot-on vowel pronunciation is critical to being understood and I'd like some feedback.

Rohan (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 05:16:16

Hi.

I tend to pronounce this letter like the 'e' in 'men', but, as you've already mentioned, it is indeed not uncommon to find it being pronounced as in 'fiancé'. In fact, come to think of it, I myself use this latter pronunciation in certain words, such as 'devi'.

Although 'spot-on' pronunciation of vowels might be critical to making yourself understood in other languages, in Esperanto, thanks to the fact that it has only five vowels, the degree of slack available is greater. As long as the the pronunciation of 'e' does not overly approach that of the other vowels, you are, more or less, free to pronounce it as an approximation of its pronunuciation in 'men'.

Regarding vowels, I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is that even unstressed vowels are pronounced fully, and not converted into a sound like 'uh'. If you listen to the audio files of Gerda Malaperis on this site, you'll find that 'Linda' often (mis)pronounces the ending '-as' as '-uhs'. It's technically incorrect, but maybe that's somewhat unavoidable in sufficiently rapid speech.

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 08:36:41

69UM24OSU12:Teach Yourself Esperanto (J.H. Sullivan 1957)- "e as in there"..
This may be a matter of dialect, because Butler's Step by Step says that the e is to be pronounced as in both lend and there.

So I would say that Jordan's bet is the best bet!

BTW the first edition of TYE in 1957 was by John Cresswell and John Hartley. The third revised edition (by J.H. Sullivan) was published in 1987.

nimakha (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 08:59:43

Let me start by giving a simplified explanation of how vowels work: A vowel is a sound like a musical chord—a combination of at least two tones, called formants. Part of the process of learning a language is forming a map of its vowels, along with acceptable ranges for each, in a multidimensional "vowel space", each axis of which corresponds to a formant frequency. The fewer vowels a language has, the more room is left between each for variation. Since Esperanto has only five vowels (compare English's 11-14), the acceptable ranges for each are relatively very large. This is a design goal for an international language, since learning a new vowel pronunciation is difficult.

Richardson seems to be trying to get you to say the vowel which IPA represents as [e]. This vowel is very common in the world's languages, but in most American English dialects, it only appears in the diphthong [ei], like in they.

According to Plena Manlibro de Esperanta Gramatiko, this is the correct way to say it, but remember, no language requires spot-on vowel pronunciation, and Esperanto is especially permissive. Since [ɛ] (like in English bet) is phonetically very close to [e], I'd expect you to be perfectly comprehensible regardless of which pronunciation you pick.

Hope that made sense... please respond here or PM me if it didn't.

jchthys (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 14:43:02

The “there”-sound (IPA [e]) is better, I think. However, I here the “men”-sound (IPA [ɛ]) quite often, and it is understandable. I don’t even know if Zamenhof defined the exact sound; I think both pronunciations are correct. The important thing is not to pronounce it like an unmodified “they”-sound (IPA [eɪ] or [ɛɪ]).

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 15:21:35

Here is an article from John Wells' phonetics blog, which suggests that, for an Esperantist, there's little to choose between them in practice.

nimakha (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 18:48:29

Miland:Here is an article from John Wells' phonetics blog, which suggests that, for an Esperantist, there's little to choose between them in practice.
That blog post seems to be about writing phonetic transcriptions of English, rather than about the actual pronunciations behind them. Wells is making the argument that because [e] doesn't appear in English phonology, it's safe to use that symbol to represent the sound [ɛ].

Frankouche (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-13 20:53:48

I usually say "e" as in "fiancé".

If you don't say "e" as :

- "a" as fat, car, cup ... like your "a" sounds
- "i" as bitch or beach
- "u" as you, too
- "o" as boat, loch, plough, so

I think i could understand your "e" as in "there" or "fiancé", "men", "bell"... okulumo.gif

Miland (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-14 10:36:16

nimakha:That blog post seems to be about writing phonetic transcriptions of English..
If I understand Wells' post correctly, his point as stated in the blog itself is not that [e] doesn't appear in English phonology, but that the alternative is also acceptable. Now on the linked page he does say that the 'e' in bet is between the two but closer to [ɛ], but qualifies this by saying that for learners of the language the distinction doesn't matter.
He also says that the German, French or Scottish 'e' would require the distinction. My point was that in ordinary English the difference doesn't matter, and nor should it for Esperantists.

ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2009-junio-17 07:34:29

nimakha:This vowel is very common in the world's languages, but in most American English dialects, it only appears in the diphthong [ei], like in they.
And if you speak with an Australian accent then you likely either don't have that sound (ei = æi or similar) or have it in the 'e' in 'bet' (which is why I think we Australians can find it hard to replicate the IPA 'e' or 'ei' sounds internationally).

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