How to pronounce Gokhan?
lang...@my-deja.com
How does one pronounce "Gokhan"? I have heard several suggestions but
would like to call my Turkish friend by his correct pronunciation. He
doesn't seem to care what we call him, but I do!
Thanks,
Byron
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un...@my-deja.com
Hi,
The "o" in your friend's name is actually an "ö". t is pronounced much
the same as the German "ö". The closest sound to this in English is the
vowel sound in "burn" (pronounced in a British accent, ie. without an
audible "r" as in the American pronunciation). However, the sound is
less drawn out that in "burn".
The "a" sound is pronounced something like the the vowel sound
of "shut"; in more sophisticated Turkish pronunciation however, it is
legthened a bit so that it has a sound approaching the "a" of "far"
(again, British pronunciation). I would recommend that for a more
fluent-sounding pronunciation, you use the sound closer to that that of
the "u" in "shut", and only slightly lengthen it.
All the other letters are as they would be in English, though ensure
that you pronounce the "h" of "han" clearly and well.
Hope I've been helpful!
Ünver.
In article <945nlq$755$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
SERAFET
Just say "girl" without the "rl" (gi), finish with
"con", like in con artist!
un...@my-deja.com
This is a bit of a lazy pronunciation: "con" makes no acknowledgement
of the "h" sound, for example, which should be at least slightly
sounded. Also, "con" only works if the person saying it does so in an
American accent, and even then it is bordering too much on an "o" sound.
vasif@fisav
it like i have just done will give a very good approximation of the
pronunciation without going into all that detail.
of course you reference to the german Ö sound is just what is needed
for those who know a bit of german.
incidentally, to those who would like to know what it means=
gökhan means the khan/ruler of the sky/skies.
by the way, be sure to not accidentally replace the k with a t... for
then it would mean he/she with a bum/ass/asshole/nether-end as big as
a khan/inn -- presumably reference to the big courtyard or the gates
of a turkish khan/inn. he-he-he!!!
--
vasif@fisav
**************
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un...@my-deja.com wrote in message <947g0d$mea$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
un...@my-deja.com
"vasif@fisav" <vgcl...@cableinet.co.uk> wrote:
> very good unver. but to simplify matters how about GIOK-KHAN. putting
> it like i have just done will give a very good approximation of the
> pronunciation without going into all that detail.
Personally, I find "io" an inadequate approximation of "ö": it can be
interpreted in many ways; and moreover, it implies that "ö" somehow
shifts in sound, when in fact it is has a constant sound-value.
vasif@fisav
notation of pronunciation far better than a very complex one.
yes, turkish is a phonetic language with each letter of the alphabet
having a specific sound -- more or less. personally, i would have
liked to have seen at the most maybe half a dozen more characters to
represent more or less ALL the sounds but language being what it is it
is impractical to try and have one character representing EACH and
every sound that exists in any language.
the long a (pronounced as in bath and as opposed to the short ah sound
as in "bum" -- sorry about the choice of example. you can certainly
think of dum-dum as in dum-dum bullets) certainly exists in turkish
but is ignored in the alphabet and rightly so. but i would have liked
to have
had a Q in the turkish alphabet -- Qamil for example instead of
Ka^mil (with the ^ actually positioned over the a -- here it is...
Kâmil) to indicate that K
is really a Q. but then there is the problem of lam (pronounced LAHM)
and la^m pronounced as in Oh! la,la la. so maybe the ^ symbol OVER
the a is a good compromise though if i wanted to be difficult i would
have said that it is NOT the letter a which is different in sound but
the letter l. so maybe the symbol should have to be over the letter
"l" rather than over the a. (note also the confusion in english over
the letter l and the number 1 OR the letter O and the number 0.
turkish also probably needs maybe a W and the Ñ for the ..ng (as in
geldiñ, geldiñiz for not all of us say geldin, geldiniz. and besides
geldin and geldiniz are grafts onto the language -- the ñ sound being
the real McCoy though i have to agree that language is a living
entity. (for others reading this please note that the ñ sound as in
geldiñ (you came) is not quite the same as in spanish).
i wonder though -- do we really come all that differently to the
spaniards?:-))))))))))))))))))
and now back to a bit of "seriosity" after that flippant remark=
i understand that there is actually a turkish alphabet in existence
that would cover nearly all the turkic dialects phonetically. it is a
pity it has not been brought into general use. a bit like the dvorak k
eyboard which is acknowledged to be far superior to the qwerty
keyboard but which one hardly ever sees, or the MS split keyboard
where the hands like in a natural position and one isn't so likely to
develop tendonitis... but then the best ideas never succeed... Ah,
well, that's life!!!
now, like turkish greek is also a phonetic language but there i
believe that there are not less than seven ways of expressing the e
sound as in geek or greek. to my way of thinking that is absolutely a
waste of time and i am also surprised that greeks have not made any
attempt to simplify their language so that there is only one letter of
the alphabet to represent each particular sound. and why should oi be
pronounced e as in greek whereas it is clearly a combination of the
letters o and i and should therefore be pronounced Oi as in "Oi! hey
you there" or as in "oil" -- pronounced oyl and which in a phonetic
language would have to be written as such.
incidentally whatever happened to the trust set up by that irish
author for the replacement of the english alphabet to a phonetic one?
you know the one i mean.... a woman approached him on the atlantic
liner on the way to the US and suggested that they should have a child
together and the child would be as beautiful as her and as brainy as
him. to which he replied= but what it the child turks out to be as
beautiful as me and as clever as you? (G)
now what was his name? the one who wrote Pygmalion (later filmed as My
Fair Lady). Now there was a critique of society.... Good old George
Bernard Shaw, of course. All the best ones are pinkos, anyway, as was
GBS. Have any of you read his essays on the question of rent --
ayakbasti, in Turkish. what an efficient way to skim off the cream....
but enough said for the time being...
--
vasif@fisav
**************
The triumph of mediocrity is represented by the body politic.
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Politics is the art of trying to unravel the repercussions of
yesterdays' policies.
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un...@my-deja.com wrote in message <94ack7$73l$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
MACREAU
38 letters and sounds, thus. you can pronounce anything you want in any
language....
un...@my-deja.com
when advising the pronunciation of "Gökhan"). I don’t think the extra
letters you mention are necessary, and I certainly disagree that
the "a" of Kazim is not affected. To my mind, the "k" stays much the
same; it is the "a" that is changed by having a mild "y" quality at its
beginning.
Your references to 2 types of "n" left me really confused, as I've only
ever noticed one form in Turkish. Perhaps it's to do with different
dialects: I am a Cypriot, and in our dialect, all the letters have very
pure sound values. Vowels are hardly ever lengthened, and the
consonants are all pronounced crisply and consistently. We do, however,
soften the "k" and "p" of certain words, and we do sometimes convert
the "v" of words such as "kavun" into a "w" (these distortion occur in
other dialects also). However, in spite of my last example, I do not
believe that a "w" is necessary to the Turkish alphabet. The letter
does not really exist in our language, and when it does occur, it is
normally the consequence of running 2 vowels together (as in "kavun"),
Few Turks can pronounce the letter in isolation. Indeed, I've never
understood why some dictionaries say that the Turkish "v" is midway
between a "v" and "w". But perhaps this is due again to my being a
Cypriot: despite examples such as that I've already given, we always
pronounce the "v" as a "v".
I must also disagree with you regarding the alphabets of other
languages. Complicated, non-phonetic alphabets may seem needlessly
complex, but they often record important details in the history and
etymology of a language. Such alphabets indicate a rich linguistic
pedigree. Indeed, I think it is highly regrettable that at least some
of the old Ottoman alphabet is not taught alongside the new Latin
script: the TOTAL break with the Arabic script has meant that we lack a
fundamental window into our past.
vasif@fisav
down.... what's a mere 38 characters as opposed to 20,000!!!
but joking aside, when i was a toddler i asked my father whether he
preferred the old ottaman or the new latin script. what he told me was
that the old ottoman script was more difficult to master but that once
mastered it was far, far superior to the latin script.
what he told me was that he did not have to learn shorthand as he
could write down what was being said to him word for word at normal
conversational speed in the old ottoman script... and when one thinks
of the flowing script of the old ottoman alphabet, it does not
surprise me in the least. in fact, i find the latin alphabet extremely
inefficient as one is constantly duplicating the same movement in
reverse writing the same thing up and down or left to right without
adding anything to the word or letter. the letter t for
example takes three movements= up, down and then one has to lift the
pen and write the cross-bar...whatever the jargon for that might be.
however, as i am not quite the geriatric to have had to learn the
ottoman
script so i can only thank the modern keyboards which make writing
more efficient. but when one thinks of how much an average person has
to write over a lifetime, one is surprised that so few people make
an effort to learn touch-typing at an early stage.
oh, i've seen people type fast with two fingers, but it must be
physically exhausting, not to say that they cannot be looking at
something else while one is typing. whereas a good touch typist can
and will correct the occasional typing error without even having to
look at the monitor.
anyway MACREAU, i really think that if as you say you have 38
characters in the armenian alphabet you have seven superfluous
characters. get what i mean?:-)))))))))))))) which reminds me of that
tallish spindly armenian boy at school we had nicknamed "kiss" -- he
used to go mad at hearing the word "kiss" -- hance the whole school kn
ew his as "kiss." i wonder what happened to him and whether he ever
got over his phobia of anything but manual DIY
sex...:-))))))))))))))))))))
--
vasif@fisav
**************
The triumph of mediocrity is represented by the body politic.
*********************************************************************
Politics is the art of trying to unravel the repercussions of
yesterdays' policies.
*********************************************************************
MACREAU wrote in message
<20010119210827...@ng-ci1.aol.com>...
Voyager
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/turkey2/
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/6512/Violate.htm
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/cointel2.htm
http://www.amnesty.org/
http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/chro.e.html
http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/epil.e.html
http://www.ahmp.org/1922nyt.html
http://eleni.simplenet.com/pontus/AsiaMinor/AsiaMinor.html
http://www.hellasonline.gr/mirror/hec/fhsbw/holocaust_flier.html
vasif@fisav
were at least aware of the ng
sound in turkish as in gelding which i would prefer to write as
geldiñ. you must be a youngster, relatively speaking of course, not to
know about this very turkish sound.
sorry, but we do not have the tendency to soften the p's and the k's
etc in turkish. sorry to disappoint you but the correct way is mekteb,
mektub not mektep, mektup. this is due to an artificial rule of
grammar introduced during the 20th century that no word can end in a
"soft" consonant. this is pure bullshit if you ask me. the linguists
got it wrong.
not every so called reform carried out in turkey was sensible. and in
trying to divorce the link between turkish on the one hand and persian
and arabic on the other hand, they did manage to mess things up a bit.
on the other hand, the linguistic reform has been on the whole very
good though introduced very rapidly for my liking.
and pray tell me, since you admit that v is sometimes pronounced as w,
how you can represent that w sound? or are you one of the brainwashed
ones who think that the world must stand still after ataturk's
reforms? i for one believe that this is not what ataturk wished.
and anyway, the turks of turkey don't always get it right. consider
the expression= dam akiyor. we in cyprus say= dam akitiyor. and i am
afraid to say that in every way, the turkish cypriot expression is the
correct one and the mainland expression is wrong.
pedantic? what is pedantic? i don't think i am being pedantic. just
practical.
--
vasif@fisav
**************
The triumph of mediocrity is represented by the body politic.
*********************************************************************
Politics is the art of trying to unravel the repercussions of
yesterdays' policies.
*********************************************************************
un...@my-deja.com wrote in message <94b1st$ohp$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
vasif@fisav
posting irrelevancies to a thread where i am picking a fight with
fellow turks and on a subject you know nothing about.
as i told a fellow turk a couple of days ago, why don't you "piss off"
as well.
hassikhtir, "re mpastarto" of "saranta sporous"!!!!
--
vasif@fisav
**************
The triumph of mediocrity is represented by the body politic.
*********************************************************************
Politics is the art of trying to unravel the repercussions of
yesterdays' policies.
*********************************************************************
Voyager wrote in message <94bqtp$j0s$1...@usenet.otenet.gr>...
un...@my-deja.com
traditional Cypriot "ng" (a fact that inexplicably escaped me in my
last reply). But I still believe that the addition of extra letters to
represent such sounds is totally unnecessary: different dialects
pronounce things differently. Some Turks in the east pronounce the "h"
of certain words "kh"; are we to recognise this by adding an extra
letter? Indeed, the sound-value of letters invariably changes depending
on the context, often imperceptibly. These variations are produced
naturally by the speaker; they do not need to be given "official"
recognition in the form of new letters. Ditto with "w": the appearance
of this sound in Turkish is always the accidental result of running
together two vowels such as "a" and "u". It does not occur at the
beginning of words, and indeed, few Turks can pronounce the sound in
isolation. I can't really see the practicality of your recommendations:
they really do seem pedantic and superfluous to me. If it ain’t broke,
why fix it?!
As for softening consonants, I was not referring to words
like "mektep", etc., but to examples such as "kiz" and "pide", which
dialects such as the Cypriot soften into "giz" and "bide". I was not
being critical when pointing out that the Cypriot dialect effects these
changes: I do it, and there’s no shame in it!
You seem to imply that I'm an ardent language-reformer: quite the
opposite! My dislike for Mustafa Kemal extends to some of his
ridiculous linguistic reforms, which tried unsuccessfully to root out
even the most common of Arabic and Persian words and replace them with
pointless "native" equivalents. Mekteb, for example, a perfectly fine
word for school, was sacrificed in favour of "okul", a word that is
simply a crude fusion of the Turkish "oku" with the French
word "ecole". But even I must reluctantly admit that the reformed
alphabet is pretty good. The old script was notoriously difficult to
learn, and in reality was unsuited to a language so strongly reliant on
vowels (the Arabic script in most cases emits all short vowels).
lang...@my-deja.com
proper pronunciation is beyond me if I don't speak Turkish, but I did
want to have a rough idea.
Thanks everyone! I appreciate your advice.
- Byron (as in BYE-RUN or BYE-RIN or whatever makes you happy)
In article <20010118221423...@ng-mn1.aol.com>,
ser...@aol.com (SERAFET) wrote:
porsuk
>In article <20010118221423...@ng-mn1.aol.com>,
> ser...@aol.com (SERAFET) wrote:
>> Hi, Byron,
>>
>> Just say "girl" without the "rl" (gi), finish with
>> "con", like in con artist!
>
>
>
>This is a bit of a lazy pronunciation: "con" makes no acknowledgement
>of the "h" sound, for example, which should be at least slightly
In spoken language Gokhan is pronounced almost without sounding the "h" sound.
At least that's the way the two Gokhans I know say their names.
>sounded. Also, "con" only works if the person saying it does so in an
>American accent, and even then it is bordering too much on an "o" sound.
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com
>http://www.deja.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iyi gunler --- bana gondereceginiz e-mailler jambonsuz olsun
un...@my-deja.com
por...@aol.com.jambon (porsuk) wrote:
> un...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >In article <20010118221423...@ng-mn1.aol.com>,
> > ser...@aol.com (SERAFET) wrote:
> >> Hi, Byron,
> >>
> >> Just say "girl" without the "rl" (gi), finish with
> >> "con", like in con artist!
> >
> >
> >
> >This is a bit of a lazy pronunciation: "con" makes no acknowledgement
> >of the "h" sound, for example, which should be at least slightly
>
> In spoken language Gokhan is pronounced almost without sounding
the "h" sound.
> At least that's the way the two Gokhans I know say their names.
>
Yes, but the person asking wanted to know how to pronounce
it "properly", which is why I was perhaps a little over-critical of
SERAFET's guide. But as you yourself seem to acknowledge, there is
still a trace of the "h" sound even in the sloppy pronunciation of
natives. My point was that "con" does not indicate this sound at all,
and moreover lends an "o"-quality to the "a" of "han".
teo...@freedom.net
LAAAAADEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS ..
kih kih kih , macreau makaraya geldi.
________________________________________________________________________
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vasif@fisav
voiced and not silent as in some french words as hotel (pronounced
otel -- a word that has also entered the turkish language as otel).
but moreover, the dotted o in the fist syllable sounds nothing like
"girl" as someone else has claimed. my assumption is the person who
said this does NOT know how to pronounce/say girl in english.
just pronounce Gökhan as if it were written Giok-khan as i suggested
before (but without a gap between the two syllables) and it will sound
OK. OR how about Goek-khan as in Goebbels, the germanic name? (if one
knows how to pronounce that germanic name that is... He-he-he!!!)
i have read a lot of rubbish about the pronunciation of this word on
this thread from people whose english pronunciation is questionable
and who therefore cannot express turkish sounds in a phoneticized
english.
--
vasif@fisav
**************
The triumph of mediocrity is represented by the body politic.
*********************************************************************
Politics is the art of trying to unravel the repercussions of
yesterdays' policies.
*********************************************************************
un...@my-deja.com wrote in message <94fjte$38a$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...