Sonic200 wrote:
... and the male name "Mario" that differ by just the last letter sound so different?
Even before dealing with the differences between Maria and Mario we need to deal with the fact that Mario, Mario, and Mario, have zero letters different and yet Mario, Mario, and Mario, are not pronounced the same:
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/20220604-13100/Quote:
In order to finally settle the debate about which pronunciation is correct, Thomas borrowed the expertise of linguist Yoïn van Spijk. Yoïn provided a very interesting view on the topic. He claims that both the American and British pronunciations of the name differ from the original Italian, which lies somewhere in between the two.
Mario’s well-known voice actor, Charles Martinet, is American, but after analyzing the Martinet’s famous “It’s-a me, Mario!” line, Yoïn concluded that he pronounces it the Italian way. In other words, the faithful way to pronounce it would be in Italian, which is [’mäː.ɾjo].
The Italian [äː] sound is similar to the British [a], but is elongated, a characteristic that is shared with the American [ɑː]. That means that both pronunciations have points in common with the Italian, but also points where they differ. If you can say that the Italian pronunciation is correct, then that means the American and British pronunciations are both incorrect.
This unique situation may be a consequence born from English itself. Japanese, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese all generally use a similar “a” sound to Italian, represented by the phonetic symbols [ä] or [äː], while French uses the “a” pronunciation found in British English. That is to say, when English speakers hear the famous “It’s-a me, Mario!” they likely interpret the sounds differently depending on whether they are speakers of American or British English.
Quote:
English is used in many different places around the world, and in each area, the language develops independently while also continuing to share similarities. Whether “MAR-io” or “Marry-oh” is correct is a question that has emerged from a unique situation and provides an interesting example of how languages develop.
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"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
03 Jun 2023, 1:00 pm
