Can You Help Me Pronounce Krstse in English?

[Moonbear]

could even be something as simple as Chris

Looks more like Christy to me.

 

[honestrosewater]

How will you pronounce "Krstse" in English ? Thanks

You still around? If you give me the original language and pronunciation (if it's in an online dictionary, that'd be even better), I might be able to give you the closest-sounding pronunciation in English. The relations between spelling and pronunciation within English and across languages are many to many, and the list of possible pronunciations could be very, very long (or, if one is completely impractical, it could be infinite). So if you want a better answer, you need to give more information.

Based on the sounds those letters usually represent in English, I think the only possible nucleuses (the main, necessary part of a syllable) are e and r -- and r is a bit of a stretch. So Krstse would be either

1) one syllable with nucleus e, making the onset, the sound sequence preceding the nucleus, Krsts, which isn't allowed by English phonotactics
2) one syllable with nucleus r, leaving an illegal coda, the sound sequence following the nucleus, stse,
3) two syllables with nucleuses r and e, giving you something like Kirst-se, with ir being pronounced as it is in bird and the e being pronounced several possible ways (except silently! ).

You might also want to post these kinds of questions in the linguistics and languages sections.

 

[tribdog]

isn't it some sort of rock formation?

 

[Sleapar]

I don't know its origin, I think it is a name.

 

[HarmNone]

Best I can figure, it's from the Bosnia/Herzegovina area of Eastern Europe. How to pronounce it, however, beats the heck out of me! If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Kerstzee...and I'd probably be wrong.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I don't know its origin, I think it is a name.

In what context did you find it?

 

[HarmNone]

I did manage to find a site on which that word was used. It's apparently Croatian. Haven't been able to find a guide to pronunciation, however. :(

 

[Sleapar]

Best I can figure, it's from the Bosnia/Herzegovina area of Eastern Europe. How to pronounce it, however, beats the heck out of me! If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say Kerstzee...and I'd probably be wrong.

Thanks, I think your pronunciation is the most correct one.

 

[HarmNone]

I did manage to find a bit on Croatian pronunciations. According to what I was able to ferret out, the final syllable would be pronounced "say"; therefore, the word would be "kerst' say". Additionally, there would be a slight "roll" to the "r". :)

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I found this:

U krstaskim ratovim unisten je Zadar koji je cisto katolicki grad. Zasto?
Zato sto je Venecija ponodila da preveze Krstse u zamjenu da I am uniste konkurente na mediteranu.
11 septmbar- mozda su i arapi i jos neke osobe razlicite nacionalnosti upravljali sa avionima veliko je pitanje ko je bio iza njih ili ako je bio bin laden usta smunjam 90% ko je onda iza njega jer nije on tako mocan.

at the following site:

http://www.cyberbulevar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11329&sid=3be50362921a646b75d48439d2170057

That should pin down the language, although I don't know what it is. I would guess Croat on account of that katolicki in there, but that's something of a stretch.

 

[Anttech]

I actually know someone called Krsto which was kristo (He was from Croatia)

So I think Moonbear is on the money :-)

Looks more like Christy to me.

 

[honestrosewater]

2) one syllable with nucleus r, leaving an illegal coda, the sound sequence following the nucleus, stse

Heh, I wasn't really all there yesterday. stse (with a silent e) isn't an illegal coda; for example, it's in lasts. And since suffixing /s/ to a word ending in /st/ is used for many things (e.g. inflection, forming possessives), and /st/ is a legal coda, the rules just about guarantee /sts/ will show up.
Anywho, I actually like that word now, but it needs a meaning. hmmm... kirstse. noun : alternate spelling of plural of cursed : those who are cursed. It's like the damned and the peoples. Oh, the poor souls of the kirstse.

 

[arildno]

Unpronounceability of a word correlates with the muddledness of the concept behind it.

this is the real reason why Slavs are ne'er-do-wells.

 

[Anttech]

Unpronounceability of a word correlates with the muddledness of the concept behind it.
this is the real reason why Slavs are ne'er-do-wells.

your jokes are too high brow for me :-)

 

[arildno]

That's a polite way of saying they are unfunny.

 

[honestrosewater]

Okay, assuming it's Croatian and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language is correct...

k, s, t denote the same sounds as in English: [k] as in key, as in see, [t] as in tea.
e denotes a sound that I'm not familiar with and isn't a phoneme in any English dialect I know of. It's somewhere between the vowels [e] in bait and [ɛ] in bet; according to that site, it's closer to bet.
r denotes the alveolar trill [r], which is similar to English's alveolar approximant [ɹ], for which we use r. Their /r/ is sometimes syllabic just as our /ɹ/ sometimes is (both vowels in herder), which means it can be a nucleus.

So it looks like option (2) is out, and the others were pretty close. e is a nucleus, so the word could be one or two syllables, depending on whether r is syllabic or not. If r is not syllabic, I can't imagine an English approximation because krsts just really doesn't work as an onset. If r is syllabic, it would be something like kirstseh. I'm not sure about stress, duration, or pitch though. I could read about it if anyone really cared. It's still possible that it's pronounced in a completely different way, and more likely so if it's a name or foreign word.

 

[arildno]

Croatians cheat. They are not allowed to insert vowels wherever they'd want them.

 

[Anttech]

Croatians cheat. They are not allowed to insert vowels wherever they'd want them.

U been drinking some of that Oslo Chrismas beer again :-) ..

 

[honestrosewater]

Wouldn't it be funny if it was just a typo.

 

[honestrosewater]

So, what, nobody likes my new word? Okay, forget the stupid plural noun stuff. A cursed will just be one who is cursed. What if I throw in a vulgar, ejaculatory use? When something bad happens to you, you can exclaim kirstse! as if to blame and, you know, curse the kirstse. Ay? Sound good?

 

[tribdog]

sounds pretty kirstsed up to me

 

[Moonbear]

Okay, assuming it's Croatian and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language is correct...
k, s, t denote the same sounds as in English: [k] as in key, as in see, [t] as in tea.
e denotes a sound that I'm not familiar with and isn't a phoneme in any English dialect I know of. It's somewhere between the vowels [e] in bait and [?] in bet; according to that site, it's closer to bet.
r denotes the alveolar trill [r], which is similar to English's alveolar approximant [?], for which we use r. Their /r/ is sometimes syllabic just as our /?/ sometimes is (both vowels in herder), which means it can be a nucleus.
So it looks like option (2) is out, and the others were pretty close. e is a nucleus, so the word could be one or two syllables, depending on whether r is syllabic or not. If r is not syllabic, I can't imagine an English approximation because krsts just really doesn't work as an onset. If r is syllabic, it would be something like kirstseh. I'm not sure about stress, duration, or pitch though. I could read about it if anyone really cared. It's still possible that it's pronounced in a completely different way, and more likely so if it's a name or foreign word.

Drawing on my eensy beensy bit of Polish knowledge, I'd be inclined to say it's pronounced more like kris-che (in Polish, whenever you see far too many consonants in a row, you can often pronounce the whole mess as -ch- unless you can find a place to insert invisible vowels ).

It's all Britain's fault. They use up so many extra vowels that there aren't any left by the time the words get to the poor Slavic countries. (Is Croatian considered a Slavic language? It looks like it resembles it, but maybe it isn't?)

I only know one word in Croatian, and it's a type of sausage (there was one Croatian stand amidst all the stands selling Greek food at the Greek festival in Cincinnati, and since nobody else was in line when I got food there, I made the guy selling it pronounce it about 5 times for me before he was satisfied I pronounced it right...I told him I wanted to know how to order it without just pointing at the sign...unfortunately, I have no idea how to spell it now, just how to say it). Somehow, when I only know one or a few words in a language, I invariably learn foods first.

 

[tribdog]

I learn how to ask someone to sleep with me. Just about every time.

 

[Moonbear]

I learn how to ask someone to sleep with me. Just about every time.

So, how many languages have you learned "No" in? (You walked right into that one! )

 

[tribdog]

I would never use them, of course, it's just easier to remember things you are interested in. HAD I used them I would have learned NO in 4 languages. Although my German is probably wrong, the English translation is "Come here with your pants in your hands."

 

[honestrosewater]

Drawing on my eensy beensy bit of Polish knowledge, I'd be inclined to say it's pronounced more like kris-che

You mean you'd be inclined to say it's pronounced that way in Polish? Using Polish pronunciation rules to try to pronounce a presumably Croatian word in Croatian just increases your chances of mispronouncing it.

(Is Croatian considered a Slavic language? It looks like it resembles it, but maybe it isn't?)

Yes, it's classified as Indo-European>Slavic>South>Western. I read a little about its history, since it was suggested that Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian were the same language or at least very closely related. (And recall that Astronuc said he thought it looked Bosnian or Serbian.) Apparently, there are some differences, but if you can speak one of them, you can speak with speakers of the other two. It seems like the arguments about their classification are politically motivated.

I only know one word in Croatian, and it's a type of sausage <snip> unfortunately, I have no idea how to spell it now, just how to say it).

The Croatian alphabet is largely phonemic -- one distinctive sound per symbol and one symbol per distinctive sound. So if you can pronounce it and it isn't one of the exceptions, you can probably spell it by simply following the rules, thanks at least in part to someone named Ljudevit Gaj.

 

[Moonbear]

You mean you'd be inclined to say it's pronounced that way in Polish? Using Polish pronunciation rules to try to pronounce a presumably Croatian word in Croatian just increases your chances of mispronouncing it.

No worse than trying to pronounce it in English.

 

[honestrosewater]

No worse than trying to pronounce it in English.

Kirstse!