In Birming[hæm] they love the governor
The pronunciation of place names.
Photo by Rachel Lynette French on UnsplashThe Birmingham in the title of this post (a line from a famous song) doesn’t refer to the birthplace of heavy metal music in the UK. Instead, it’s Birmingham, Alabama, with the last syllable pronounced like the word ham (i.e. with a full quality) while the town in the UK has a reduced vowel: /bɜːmɪŋəm/.
The pronunciation of place names (aka toponyms) is hard to predict from the spelling in some cases. This small sample of places in the UK should convince the skeptics:
| Place Name | Canonical pronunciation | Likely spontaneous (wrong) pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| Reading | /ˈrɛdɪŋ/ | /ˈriːdɪŋ/ |
| Cambridge | /ˈkeɪmbrɪdʒ/ | /ˈkæmbrɪdʒ/ |
| Leicester | /ˈlɛstə/ | ? |
| Greenwich | /ˈɡrɪnɪdʒ/ | /ˈɡriːnwɪtʃ/ |
| Chiswick | /ˈtʃɪzɪk/ | /ˈtʃɪzwɪk/ |
| Berkshire | /ˈbɑːkʃə/ | /ˈbɜːkʃə/ |
| Gloucester | /ˈglɒstə/ | ? |
| Loughborough | /ˈlʌfbərə/ | /ˈlɒxbʌrə/ ? |
| Cholmondeley | /ˈtʃʌmli/ | ??? |
French place names
I’m a native speaker of French but I’m not 100% sure about the pronunciation of:
- Metz : is it /mɛs/, /mɛts/, /mɛz/ or /mɛdz/ ?
- Bruxelles : /bʁysɛl/ or /bʁyksɛl/; it seems people favour the former.
- Auxerre : /osɛʁ/ or /oksɛʁ/; again, people seem to prefer the counterintuitive pronunciation (the grapheme <x> being most often /ks/ elsewhere)
A frequent difficulty is whether the last letter should be pronounced:
| Place Name | Pronounce final letter? |
|---|---|
| Anvers | + |
| Arnas | + |
| Avoriaz | - |
| Chamonix | - |
| Gex | + |
| Juliénas | - |
| (Les) Vans | + |
| Paris | - |
| Ruoms | + |
| Saint-Geniez(-d’Olt) | ? |
| Saint-Genis(-les-Ollières) | - |
| Saint-Jean-de-Luz | + |
Bourg-en-Bresse
Bourg-en-Bresse is a small French town (40,000 inhabitants) not too far from where I live. Being a ‘’neighbour’’, I know how the locals pronounce the name of their town.
The most intuitive pronunciation would be /buʁɑ̃brɛs/; this is what most non-locals say. In French the word bourg is a common noun that refers to a small town. It is pronounced /buʁ/, so /buʁɑ̃brɛs/ is really what you’d naturally come up with.
But the canonical pronunciation is /buʁkɑ̃brɛs/ with a rather unexpected ‘’linking’’, probably historical, /k/. I can’t think of any other French word ending in graphic <g> that would give rise to a /k/ before a vowel. Here the /ʁ/ is enough to comply with a tendency in languages to avoid a succession of 2 vowels. And even if it was not enough, <g> would generate /g/, not /k/.
In oral speech, Bourg-en-Bresse is often shortened to Bourg. And guess what… yes, it is pronounced /buʁk/. This is really the ultimate shibboleth to recognize insiders!
To a certain extent, it sounds as if the linking consonant is preserved while it is no longer needed. Although it is a slightly different case, it somewhat reminds me of the persistent /r/ in some speakers of British English in the word idea/r/. This one is a linking (linguists call it ‘‘intrusive’’) /r/ that is used in sequences like the idea /r/ of, the law /r/ of, etc. And sometimes, it ends up being produced as part of the word without a phonological need for it: ‘‘it’s a good idea/r/’’.
Back to place names: if you want to get the pronunciation right, the sensible thing to do is to always look it up in a dictionary or ask the locals.
