How to pronounce 'Przemek Kaszubski'?
Polish users, of course, do not find the name hard. Nor will
anybody else as long as he/she remembers that:
-
- 'rz' is a diagraph pronounced similarly (though slightly
'harder') than the sound represented by the final 'ge' in
English loan-words such as 'massage' or 'entourage'. One
could therefore attempt to transcribe the sound as 'zh',
as is done for the Russian name 'Zhivago'.
HOWEVER,
in Polish sounds are devoiced when word-final
and also when following or preceding a voiceless
consonant. In 'Przemek', 'rz' follows voiceless 'p'
and is therefore realised more like voiceless 'sh'
than 'zh'.
-
- By way of analogy, 'sz' is a voiceless, practically
environment- independent equivalent of 'rz'. Its
pronunciation resembles 'sh' even in between voiced
sounds, as is the case in 'Kaszubski'.
Given the above, the English approximation of the name should
sound more or less as 'pshemek kashupsky', with the word stresses
falling (as is the rule in Polish, by the way) on the last but
one syllable.
Lastly, it should be said that 'Przemek'
is a shortened, rather diminutive form of the full three-syllable
'Przemysław' / 'PRZEMYSŁAW' (pronounced more or less as 'pshemyswaf').
The letter 'ł' there is the is an l with a short, diagonal,
rising bar (ASCII codes 136 and 157 in the Latin II table).
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