Name pronunciation help! (Bengali and Albanian)

June 16, 2009 10:58 AM

Name pronunciation help! (Bengali and Albanian)

How should I (British English speaker) pronounce the following names?

Bengali:
Farbas
Moinul
Mohizur
Fayzul
Fahmida
Asrun

Albanian:
Arbesa
Elvisa

I assume that most of these are pronounced pretty much how you'd expect but it would be really helpful if someone could give me some pointers on where accents should be, any unexpected letter sounds etc.

Thankyou!

posted by Lotto to writing & language (8 comments total)

A drop in the ocean: I knew an Elvisa once. As expected, accent on the second syllable, pronounced pretty much as it would be in Spanish: el-VEECE-uh.
posted by rokusan at 11:03 AM on June 16

Let me take a gander at couple of the Bengali ones.

Moinul: Moi like Coi in Coin. Nul rhymes with bull.
Fayzul: Fay like Fai in Fairy. Zul could either rhyme with bull or annul.
posted by chime at 11:40 AM on June 16

The one Fayzul I knew pronounced his name so that it rhymed with Mabel. Fahmida I think is fah-MEED-uh.

As an aside, if you don't know how to pronounce someone's name - most people are more than happy to tell you. There's no shame in it.
posted by arcticwoman at 12:11 PM on June 16

rokusan has Elvisa. Arbesa is pronounced with the same stress, ahr-BAY-uh.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 12:12 PM on June 16

I'm married to a Bangladeshi guy who says:

Farbas = Four-bass
Moinul = Moy-i-nool
Mohizur = Mo-hee-zoor
Fayzul = Fay-zool
Fahmida = Faw-meed-ah
Asrun = Ash-roon
posted by jamesonandwater at 12:36 PM on June 16

Albo guy here - as rokusan said, the accent is on the second syllable for both names. Arbesa would be ahr-beh-sah. Dee (hi Dee!) nearly had it.
posted by preparat at 12:39 PM on June 16

Thanks for all the help! arcticwoman: I normally would ask (and still might on Thursday) but these names are some of 30 in a class which I will be teaching for an interview lesson at a school and I want to be able to get on with the activities rather than spend too much time asking students for correct pronunciations!
posted by Lotto at 12:56 PM on June 16

Dee was clearly out of her mind when she wrote that.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:41 PM on June 16