Job Discussion Forums

[Aramas]

According to the Oxford Concise, sheik can be pronounced either 'shake' or 'sheek'. I've always assumed that it was just another one of those Americans/Everyone else things. I've also assumed that it's usually Americans that think they're funny calling themselves some variation on Frank Zappa's 'Sheik Yerbouti'. I won't go into the 'booty' thing, but needless to say that if someone uses the term and is not a pirate (and no, 'butt pirate' doesn't count), then I'm inclined to walk away. However, perhaps I'm mistaken.

Can anyone elaborate on regional pronunciation differences? I'm concerned that something that I may have always considered to be 'proper English' pronunciation might be peculiar to my own regional dialect. Is there an online dictionary that identifies the dialect relating to variations of pronunciation? I've been looking around and I've found some surprising stuff on wiki, but unfortunately it doesn't cite adequate references.

Have a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

It says that the different dialects of English are:

British Isles
British English | East Anglian English | English English | Estuary English | Hiberno-English (Ireland) | Highland English | Manx English | Mid Ulster English | Midlands English | Northern English | Received Pronunciation | Scottish English | Welsh English | West Country dialects

United States
American English | African American Vernacular English | Appalachian English | Baltimorese | Boston English | California English | Chicano English | General American | Hawaiian Pidgin English | Maine-New Hampshire English | New York-New Jersey English | North Central American English | Inland Northern American English | Pacific Northwest English | Pittsburgh English | Southern American English | Utah English | Yooper

Canada
Canadian English | West/Central Canadian English | Maritimer English | Newfoundland English | Quebec English

Oceania
Australian English | New Zealand English | Australian Aboriginal English

Asia
Burmese English | Hong Kong English | Indian English | Malaysian English | Philippine English | Singaporean English | Sri Lankan English

Other countries
Bermudian English | Caribbean English | Jamaican English | Liberian English | Malawian English | South African English

Miscellaneous
Basic English | Commonwealth English | Euro-English | Globish | International English | Llanito (Gibraltar) | Mid-Atlantic English | North American English | Plain English | Simplified English | Special English | Standard English

Can anyone confirm that list? I've never heard of most of them. Yooper? Globish? Who determines what constitutes a dialect rather than just an accent?

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

^ Hello Aramas



When in doubt, I like to examine the etymology of the word.

Knowing where a word originated sometimes offers

a good clue regarding accurate pronunciation.


Based on the etymology below, I think I'd

probably go with the 'shake' version.


Anybody here speak Arabic?

[here_now]

In Arabic, both are ok...I personally use both interchangeably when speaking Arabic....it just really depends on the person and sometimes the dialect....although Middle-easterners are more inclined to pronounce it "Shak(h)" while North Africans would for the most part say "sheekh"
Then again both are right and the difference in pronunciation is insignificant.

[kaw]

In my 4 years in the Middle East - I've only heard it being pronounced 'shake' with the funny 'h' at he end which I can never pronounce.
There was however a song many years ago where it was pronounced as 'chic' - this is however according to my mother who is slightly mad at the best of times.

[Steppenwolf]

The ending is 'KH', which marks this word as a loanword from, yes, Arabic. In such cases it is good to get the pronunciation from a native.
Arabic as, indeed, many other languages, has guttural fricative sounds that are alien to the native English speaker (unless he or she comes from the U.K. where they are familiar with the 'CH' sound in 'Loch" (as in Loch Nessie).
THis sound is identical to the 'CH' in German ("Lachen").

As for the vowel 'ei' in 'Sheikh", ideally it is pronounced as a diphtong (EI) as in 'say' or 'may'. There are some Arabic variations including a monoophtong 'E'.

[dmb]

[Aramas]

Well I'm glad we've got that sorted out

My mother told me that the technical term for people who try to pronounce things in the original language was 'pretentious tw*t' What I'm trying to figure out is how the great unwashed in various countries actually pronounce things (rather than how they should), such as 'shake and skeek', 'dahnse and danse', 'cahstle and cassel', 'g'rahdge and garidge' etc..

Is there anything even vaguely resembling a standard? (Standard English?) If I work at a school purporting to teach 'British English' will I be expected to pronounce everything like the Queen Mother? (Anah? I'm nawt waiting anah!)

Or do we just teach all of the known variations in pronounciation and hope that our students don't get too confused?

[rusmeister]

Well the 2 big TEFL standards are British English and American English. I use British textbooks, although I'm American, because of the much lower level of professionalism in American books.

The use of the concept of dialect is mistaken in that Wikipedia article and greatly exaggerated.

The Cambridge online dictionary says this:

[Stephen Jones]

A dialect (whether a regional or a social dialect) should have significantly different lexis, and possibly also grammatical differences from another dialect.

The list of dialects you quote is surprisingly small; I used to be able to distinguish between six different Lancashire accents, and at one time the dialect of one Yorkshire village would be different from that of another one a couple of miles away, and both dialects would present difficulties in comprehension to another village 30 miles away.

[rusmeister]

I believe Steven is right, so should clarify my previous post - in England the number of official dialects would probably increase.

[Atassi]