BS: Portuguese pronunciation?

Subject: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 02:24 PM

My nephew and his lovely Brazilian wife, half a world away, are celebrating the birth of their first child, a son. News has been passed by the electric telephone that the baby's name is 'Lucre/Looka/Lucca/Luka. The only spelling I can find is the normal (for me) 'Lucas.'
Is this the likely spelling? Her Indoors wants to get it right.

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 03:53 PM

This site gives "Lucas" as the fourth most popular name for boys in Brazil this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 06:46 PM

Yes, but the pronunciation was filtered through three Anglophones before it got to me, and then on a international phone line. I'd pronounce Lucas 'Lookass,' English style, and there was no 'S' in the pronunciation we received.
I'd suppose that you're right, McGrath, I just hoped there was a Portuguese speaker who could put me right. I'd looked at a similar site.

I'd never noticed the extra U in Portuguese before, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 07:07 PM

I found this site, which has a clip of a Brazilian Portuguese speaker pronouncing the name. Hope it's right. Congratulations anyway!

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 08:08 PM

Not terribly different from the English pronunciation, is it. Sort of 'Rlucass.'
My B.i.L. thought it MIGHT be spelled Luca, and he is the Grandad!

Oh well, just have to admit ignorance. Thanks for the effort, McGrath.

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 09:02 PM

I spent a few days in Portugal last year, and I had no luck at call catching onto pronunciation. The written language is close enough to Spanish, that I can understand most things, but the pronunciation made no sense to me at all.
I was sitting on an airplane next to some Portuguese people on my way home from the Getaway last month, and I couldn't even identify their language.
So, Gurney, if you learn to pronounce it right, you have my admiration.

So, if my calculations are correct, your nephew's son is your grand-nephew - in which case, congratulations are in order.

All the best to you and your family.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Monique
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 09:22 PM

Here guys to improve your Brazilian Portuguese and of course Wiki if you want to know more about the language.

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: heric
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 09:42 PM

I hope this isn't too much of a distraction, but I'd appreciate it if someone could resolve this for me. Let's assume that Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo was actually Portugese, and spelled his name: João Rodrigues Cabrilho. How would he pronounce Cabrilho when he was home with his parents? (I found an audio file purporting to answer this but the link is dead.)

(Californians please don't answer I won't believe any of you.) :)~

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 11:47 PM

What a good site that LanguageGuide is! Thank you, Monique. The Portuguese don't seem to swallow the final 'S' as the French do. Thank you for the felicitations, McGrath and Joe.

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Monique
Date: 09 Nov 09 - 06:52 AM

@ Gurney: in Portugal Portuguese, the "s" at the end of a syllable -any, not only the last one- is pronounced "sh"

@ Heric: Cabrilho is pronounced the same way as Sp. Cabrillo. The Portuguese borrowed the "lh" digraph from the Occitan -what the English speaking world call "Provençal"- to write the Spanish "ll" sound, the one you more or less hear in English when you say "will_you. "Lh" was the way the troubadours would write this sound and it's still spelled this way in modern Occitan (Cf the note I wrote about the Occitan spelling at the bottom of Ma maire vòu)

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Smedley
Date: 09 Nov 09 - 07:18 AM

A Spanish friend of mine told me that to pronounce Portuguese, you should imagine you are Russian and drunk and speaking Spanish.

She may be biased but it made me laugh...........

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: Monique
Date: 09 Nov 09 - 07:19 AM

@ Heric: sorry, I was focussed on the "lh" thing. In "Cabrilho" the "a" is unstressed so it's a kind of schwa and the final "o" is unstressed too so it's pronounced "oo", so it sounds more or less like "cuhbrilyou"

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 09 Nov 09 - 07:43 AM

Yes, I have often mistaken,when overhearing snippets of conversation between Portuguese people,them for Russians ; it does sound very similar to me !

Subject: RE: BS: Portugese pronunciation?
From: heric
Date: 09 Nov 09 - 10:05 AM

Thank you Monique!