Ur, what?

[rochvelleth]

If you had to give a conference paper in which you had to say 'Ur' (as in the city) several times

Comments

[ewx]

Probably to rhyme with 'her' or 'fur' rather than e.g. 'moor'. Err, obviously you'll have to guess how I pronounce those words to make sense of this...

[megamole]

Uh?

[ext_72852]

what does that rhyme with? :-)

[uisgebeatha]

'Oor'? Then again, I suffer from different pronunciation there too, what with rolling my 'r's and all that ;)

[ladyshrew]

I was taught Oor, but I'm American. :-P

[naath]

To rhyme with "er". I think saying "oor" might confuse people but rolling your 'r' is unlikely to.

[naath]

Um, obviously that depends how you say 'er' this isn't very helpful is it. Also like 'her', 'fur', 'purr'... also not helpful :)

[woodpijn]

Kind of like a schwa but longer. Same way I pronounce "er".

If your Northern pronunciation is more of a front vowel, like "oor", then that sounds (at least to my non-classicist ears) more authentic, like a closer approximation to how ancient Middle Easterners might have pronounced it. So if that's at all true, then you needn't feel ashamed of your pronunciation, because it's actually more correct.

This reminds me of a lecture I went to when studying The Franklin's Tale for A-level. The tale involves the theme of "trouthe". One lecturer pronounced it like modern "truth", another read it more like how it's written, "trow-ther", and another tried to approximate an authentic Chaucerian pronunciation, something like "tror-ther" (obviously not pronouncing the Rs rhotically). None of them sounded wrong or bad.

This comment would be better with IPA symbols, but I'm not confident I'd get them right :/

But it's amusing sitting at work quietly going "Ur. Ur. Oor. Er. Uuuurrr."

[megamole]

Errrr...