How Elham-Eid Alldredge is pronounced

May 10, 2006 5:59 PM

How is this Palestinian name pronounced?

I am interviewing with a Dr. Elham-Eid Alldredge tomorrow, and I would like to be able to correctly pronounce her name.

I used to live in Saudi Arabia, so I have my own idea, but I'd appreciate some expertise.

posted by Scottk to writing & language (14 comments total)

I know nothing about Palestinian names, but this may be useful.
posted by rossination at 6:22 PM on May 10, 2006

Ill haam (as in sick pig meat, but spend a little longer on the a, and the emphasis is on the haam)

a3eed (My only hope that you might know what this 3 represents is that you say you've lived in Saudi Arabia, so perhaps you've heard it. It is made by squeezing the throat in a horrible, difficult way. The only way I can come remotely close to describing what it sounds like is to ask you to recall the way that certain black American teenage girls contracted "all right" in the '90's, which might be written something like "aight." That sound, the sound that replaces the ll r in the middle of "all right", is the letter represented here by the 3. She will not be surprised if you can't pronounce that letter, though, and in that case you can say "ayeed.")

I think Alldredge is just the European name. I just had my Egyptian husband try to sound it out, and he can't recognize it as anything Arabic.
posted by leapingsheep at 6:25 PM on May 10, 2006

Here you go. Let me know when you've got it so I can delete it.
posted by evariste at 6:33 PM on May 10, 2006

Yeah, I think Alldredge must be her married name.
posted by evariste at 6:33 PM on May 10, 2006

Hmm...there's also a female name "ilham" with the h as in "house", so I don't know which one it is.
posted by evariste at 6:49 PM on May 10, 2006

leapingsheep, which one did your husband think it was? The english-like h or the "foggy" h?
posted by evariste at 6:50 PM on May 10, 2006

English-like h.
posted by leapingsheep at 7:04 PM on May 10, 2006

That's what I'm now thinking as well.
posted by evariste at 7:08 PM on May 10, 2006

New version. Disregard the one above, I'm convinced leapingsheep's husband is correct about the h.

The problem is that Arabic has two "h" letters, and I guessed wrong about which one it was...
posted by evariste at 7:20 PM on May 10, 2006

Thank you, everybody.
The job interview is tomorrow, so we'll see if I can't impress her with my ability to recruit internet people smarter than me and pronounce her name correctly.
posted by Scottk at 8:10 PM on May 10, 2006

Actually, it's not like a sick pig...

El-ham: The "el" is pretty explicit (like the "El Train", not like an "i" in "ill"); the "ham" should rhyme with "calm"

Eid: Should rhyme with "aid".

Alldredge: I agree this is more likely European than Middle Eastern.
posted by Dr. Sam at 8:35 PM on May 10, 2006

Why not just address her as Dr. Alldredge?
posted by matkline at 9:08 PM on May 10, 2006

I had a friend in college named Elham and she pronounced exactly as Dr. Sam describes. Of course she was Iranian, not Palestinian and Farsi is somewhat different from Arabic.
posted by zanni at 12:46 AM on May 11, 2006

Farsi is somewhat different from Arabic.

Yeah, as in two completely different, historically unrelated languages that are pronounced completely differently. I realize you're trying to be helpful, but if you'd give it a moment's thought you'd realize that's not helpful, especially when people who actually know Arabic are answering.

As for Alldredge, while it's very likely a married name, it's possible that it's an anglicized version of an Arabic name like al-D(a)raj. Let us know when you get back!
posted by languagehat at 5:56 AM on May 11, 2006