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PRONOUNCING INDEX—Continued
ū — as ou in "wound"
| y — as i in "is" | Both with a slight sound of German ü | |
| ȳ — as ee in "free" |
æ — as e in "men"
ǣ — as a in "fate"
ei — as ey in "they"
ey — as in "they"
au — as ou in "out"
ai — as i in "fine"
No attempt has been made to differentiate between the short open "o" and the short closed "o," which for speakers of English closely resemble one another.
Consonants. The consonants are pronounced approximately as in English, with the following special points to be noted:
G is always hard, as in "get," never soft, as in "gem;" following "n" it has the same sound as in "sing."
J is pronounced as y in "young."
Th following a vowel is soft, as in "with;" at the beginning of a word or following a consonant it is hard, as in "thin."
The long (doubled) consonants should be pronounced as in Italian, both elements being distinctly sounded; e. g., "Am-ma."
S is always hard, as in "so," "this," never soft, as in "as."
H enters into combinations with various following consonants; with "v" the sound is approximately that of wh in "what"; with "l," "r" and "n" it produces sounds which have no exact English equivalents, but which can be approximated by pronouncing the consonants with a marked initial breathing.
Accents. The accented syllable in each name is indicated by the acute accent (′). In many names, however, and particularly in compounds, there is both a primary and a secondary accent, and where this is the case the primary stress is indicated by a double acute accent (″) and the secondary one by a single acute accent (′). To avoid possible confusion with the long vowels marks used in Old Norse texts, the accents are placed, not over the vowels, but after the accented syllables.
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