A clear ‘L’
February 4, 2007Sometimes, Americans can just piss me off without actively and knowingly doing something wrong.
I was just listening to this song by Eminen and… Akon is his name (thanks Wikipedia), “Smack That”. In this ’song’, Akon, in the chorus, sings about his Lamborghini Gallardo. So what, you say, every rapper sings about his cars.
Yes, but Akon is rapping about a car that does not exist. At least not in the way he pronounces ‘Gallardo’. Akon pronounces it with what in phonology is called a clear ‘L’ (i.e. ‘leap’), while in fact you pronounce it with a ‘j’ consonant (’yes’).
This just pisses me off for some reason.
Music, Automotive | 
There’s no Y in job !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0GsfsVWDh4]
Comment by mikesum32 — February 4, 2007 @ 12:46 am
There is no word in English with a “j” pronounced like “yes.” Spanish, yes. Several other languages, yes. But the j is always considered a “hard” consonant in English, like “jar” or “jam” or “jingle.” VERY infrequently, it’s used to create a “zh” sound, but it’s nearly universally the Americanizing of another word, such as the Iraqi city “Falluajah.”
If you search real hard, you’ll uncover a few words like “Hallelujah”, but again, that’s an Americanized version of a Hebrew word. In fact, the word “Gallardo” doesn’t obey any standard English rules; several latin-based languages have a letter “ll” which creates the “y” sound, but we don’t.
So, in short, it’s kind of funny that you are making fun of an American for pronouncing something incorrectly and your correction is wrong too. :)
Comment by Adam S — February 4, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
I never said I was actually making any sense :).
It just annoys me, because I consider “Gallardo” to be a name, as in Adam; and when I meet you in real life, you won’t hear me saying “Adam” the Dutch way– you’ll hear me say it in the English way (there’s a huge difference). Even when I’m speaking Dutch, I’ll say “Adam” the English way when referring to you.
I somehow consider it eloquent to pronounce proper nouns as if you are speaking the language they originate from.
Comment by Administrator — February 4, 2007 @ 3:51 pm
A clear ‘M’
Eminem. With an M at the end. Not N. Clearly. Thom is rapping about a rapper that does not exist.
Sometimes Dutch can just….
Okay, really I don’t care, it was just ironic. :D
Comment by Peejay — February 5, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
Actually the ll sound in Gallardo is not pronounceable in english:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_lateral_approximant
Comment by Hugo — February 6, 2007 @ 5:44 pm
Gallardo is a spanish word. It means… ummm… smart and brave, all in one :D
It’s an adjetive (not used this days) and a proper noun too (a surname, indeed). The correct pronunciation is as the administrator said (talking about “spanish pronunciation”, I mean).
We have the “H” letter but it has no sound (don’t ask me why :D), we’ll pronunciate “Eyo” for your word “Hello”, but we don’t do it. We pronunciate “Jelou” as you do. We learn songs, phrases, so many “english” words and we pronunciate in english, not in spanish, so I guess it’s ok if someone pay attention to this kind of things.
PD: My older brother has got a black Gallardo Spider; it’s amazing :D
PPD: Sorry for the mispelled words/sentences U_u’
Comment by Jose — May 3, 2007 @ 8:25 pm