Steven wrote in reply to Lou's pronunciation question:
> > Is Gios Joss with a long o?
>
> Gee-OHS
I know Alfredo quite well having been to his shop in Settimo Torinese. The
name is pronounced almost as a one single syllable. The Gee at the beginning
is pronounced as quickly as possible blending into a final OSS. I can tell
people how to pronounce it but don't know the phonetic symbols to explain it
properly.
>
> > Is Guerciotti Gear-chee-o-tee?
>
> Gair-chee-OH-tee
Larry Black is very correct here. Any Italian word that starts with a g
followed by a u automatically becomes a hard G. You also do not have silent
letters in Italian so the correct pronounciation would be a 3 syllable name:
Gwer-chot-tee with a t at the end of the second and at the start of the
third syllables. The third syllable is stressed.
>
> > Is Vitus Vee-toos?
>
> VEE-toos (with the toos kind of clipped)
I understand teh explanation here and agree with this but I expect most people would have difficulty understanding the explanation.
> > Does Zeus use the Spanish 'th' for the Z?
>
> The 'th' sound is more associated with Catalan (which is spoken in the
> Catalonia region of Spain, including Barcelona [Barthelona]). I believe
> Zeus is most properly pronounced "ZAY-oos"
Here the pronunciation varies according to where you are from in Spain and as such there are many 'correct' spanish pronounciations. I like this one myself because the 'th' one seems very contrived to me.
> And Bianchi's (Bee-AHN-key) 'celeste' color is pronounced "Chuh-LESS-tay"
I would pronounce the first syllable as Chay instead of chuh, giving chay-less-tay with stress on the second syllable.
Steven Maasland Moorestown, NJ
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