You should go try out names you know how they sound and do a comparison of THEIR pronunciation. It is not accurate in any technical linguistic sense... but it is pretty good to me. If I heard it from an irish native it would be as given... slightly dahn/dawn-a-van; think lilt and sing-song. I'd expect a british/scots to be donno-vin. I'm influenced by the pop-star, of course, and he, in Ontario English, in between, as you'd expect; no so 'oo' as in "so what?" and not so 'ah' as in "waaaaaaaaa". Donovan is, IMHLO (in my humble linguistic opinion) is Dannavin; 'anna' as in my home town of Toronto (which I pronounce Taranna). Of course, in Japanese it could be Donnoban in the west, and in the East with a different intonation, with no emphasis.
Thank god there can be no good answer to the question.
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Date: 2006-04-26 12:07 pm (UTC)You should go try out names you know how they sound and do a comparison of THEIR pronunciation. It is not accurate in any technical linguistic sense... but it is pretty good to me. If I heard it from an irish native it would be as given... slightly dahn/dawn-a-van; think lilt and sing-song. I'd expect a british/scots to be donno-vin. I'm influenced by the pop-star, of course, and he, in Ontario English, in between, as you'd expect; no so 'oo' as in "so what?" and not so 'ah' as in "waaaaaaaaa". Donovan is, IMHLO (in my humble linguistic opinion) is Dannavin; 'anna' as in my home town of Toronto (which I pronounce Taranna). Of course, in Japanese it could be Donnoban in the west, and in the East with a different intonation, with no emphasis.
Thank god there can be no good answer to the question.