Mageia - a Mandriva fork

Posted Sep 24, 2010 6:23 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753)
In reply to: Mageia - a Mandriva fork by nye
Parent article: Mageia - a Mandriva fork

How would you pronounce it as a Finnish word?
I know this sounds flippant but I'm actually fairly serious about the point. I find it very frustrating trying to read about something when I keep stumbling over the word in my head.

I'm afraid I cannot explain it to you without sending an audio file, or by using the international phonetic alphabet, which I am not skilled with. All I can do is to try to explain why Finnish-speakers do not have the stumbling problem you describe. I assume your native language is English, which is well known for having an especially context-dependent (and sometimes irregular) relationship with letters and sounds. Finnish is at the other end of spectrum, it is written nearly phonetically, most of the time letters and sound values map 1-1. If a foreign or invented word like "mageia" does not contain letters that are never used in Finnish, and does not have unreasonable sequences of consonants (vowels are OK, we like them), it has an unique Finnish pronunciation. Both "Mandriva" and "Mageia" are easy cases for this rendering. For real foreign words, this pronunciation often has little relationship with how the foreigner would say it, but it makes remembering the word easier, and the spelling can be communicated to another Finn verbally.