M. KAY-EE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 487, 22 October 1948, Page 5

M. KAY-EE

Sir,-When I first read the name of the newest French Premier I set to work to find out how it should be pronounced. I seemed to find that the eight letters produced five sounds, which resolved themselves into three agreeable syllables. Quite comfortable and agreeable. Try it. K with the vowel in her

plus the vowel in bean plus consonant with the vowel in hat: Keiya. It is quite impossible to express the sounds in the English alphabet because we use e for three sounds, i for two, perhaps three, y for two, and a for four, That merely by the way. What_a shock I got when I began to hear thé announcers on the radio pronouncing the. word Kay-ee. Surely, I said, the announcers are wrong tér once. Surely the first vowel should be that in her. Presuming, I further argued, that the announcers are correct, how will they pronounce amateur and liqueur. I consulted a dictionary of repute, but perhaps of old date, and it gave one the choice of saying either amatyure or amatayr, but said definitely that the final vowel in liqueur was that in her. Up to now I had hoped to find that the French language, however tricky, still had a regular system of indicating sounds-that letters or combinations of letters had a constant value -that wherever they were found they always indicated the same sound, Am I to be disillusioned as regards this comfortable doctrine? Without tears I abandon my third syllable, knowing well how the French, like others much nearer: home, delight to clip their words, but I will need convincing that French combinations of letters have variable valuec. However, I would get a good laugh if somebody were to prove that the combination ew has one sound when used medially and another sound when it is

used finally.

ALPHA

(Stratford).