Pronunciation watch

[jean]

A cousin of mine was married to a Luciano: I'd say we pronounced this as 'Loochyahno' - but the 'y' sound is barely there. Could we call that a diphthong?

I don't think so - vowel + y = diphthong, y + vowel =

... an iotacised A -

(Well, I thought I was familiar with the concept of iotacising, but on checking, I find it doesn't exist...)

.

[kernelbogey]

Alora... buon natale a tutti!

Ciao, kb

[Sir Velo]

Ciao, kb

NB: that's pronounced "Chow" not "Chee-ow"

[jean]

If only it were so simple!

[french frank]

There is an additional consideration here: the number of syllables in the word. If you have a quadrisyllable in English, which has its main (natural) stress on the third syllable, there will be a secondary stress on the first syllable: còmplicátion. The other two syllables are unstressed, and often become a schwa no matter what the vowel is. So if you have a name like Giovanni, which is a trisyllable in Italian, and the English speaker turns it into a quadrisyllable, it becomes very noticeable because the 'first syllable' carries a secondary stress: so Gee-o-va-ni, whereas the short 'i' should combine with the following 'o' to form a single syllable.

This short 'i' is, in Phonetics a 'yod': "2. Phonetics. The semivowel represented by /j/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet; the symbol standing for this sound in phonetic transcription." [OED] The nearest quote in the OED is:

1934 M. K. Pope From Lat. to Mod. Fr. ii. i. 55 The voiced fricative sound j (jod), heard in bien bjẽ.

On its own it does not normally (I can think of an example, but let's not complicate) constitute a separate syllable. It introduces a small 'y' sound before the following vowel, which depending on context and language may be more or less intrusive. Eg the pronoun 'yo' in Spanish which in Castilian and S. Spanish (and S. American) has two distinct pronunciations.

To put it in a less formal way, it's the 'consonantal' quality of the 'i' that should be heard, not the vocalic. That applies in Luciano, ciao &c. too.

[jean]

...the pronoun 'yo' in Spanish which in Castilian and S. Spanish (and S. American) has two distinct pronunciations.

And Italian io of course really is two syllables, as I said above.

I did find this, buried in the comments under an item on his coining of the term rhotic in John Wells's blog:

I'm very interested to hear you invented it. I've always assumed that the occasionally-heard 'yotic' was created by analogy with rhotic. If so, you started a fashion.

...it's the 'consonantal' quality of the 'i' that should be heard, not the vocalic...

I don't hear a clear demarcation between the two - and unless I actually heard what Sir V. transcribes here, I can't tell if it would grate.

It's all down to the Phoenician and Semitic letter yod, Greek ιώτα sometimes spelled γιώτα in Modern Greek. I found a fascinating article about this aspect of the transition from Ancient to Modern Greek, but I've lost it again, you'll be pleased to hear.

[french frank]

And Italian io of course really is two syllables, as I said above.

That was the example I alluded to. Is it in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro (Act II quartet)??? where three characters sing in turn:
Ee-o
Ee-o
Ee-o

I did find this, buried in the comments under an item on his coining of the term rhotic in John Wells's blog:

I'm very interested to hear you invented it. I've always assumed that the occasionally-heard 'yotic' was created by analogy with rhotic. If so, you started a fashion.

I didn't realise it was a new term. I'd thought it was connected with 'rhotacism'. But this isn't relevant here, is it?

I don't hear a clear demarcation between the two - and unless I actually heard what Sir V. transcribes here, I can't tell if it would grate.

I think if you heard the exaggerated prolongation of the vowel you would recognise it - even if it didn't grate with you.

And to quote the OED under semi-vowel: 'As a technical term the word now most commonly denotes only w and y, but sometimes it includes these together with the liquids and nasals, chiefly in their non-syllabic values.'

My small Collins Gem, which knows not the IPA, transcribes gioventù as [joh-ven-too'] and all words beginnining gio- are similarly [joh]. IPA is dʒɔˈvɑn ni. The i softens the 'g, just as the 'h' makes it hard (eg Margherita).

[alycidon]

Talking of which...

Last Sunday in church I was singing 'and io, io, io, by priests and people sungen' (Ding-dong merrily on high)

I don't know what it means. Does anyone?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Talking of which...
Last Sunday in church I was singing 'and io, io, io, by priests and people sungen' (Ding-dong merrily on high)
I don't know what it means. Does anyone?

Isn't it an all-purpose, generic "filler" like "hey, nonny-no", "a-wop-bop-a-luba, a-lop-bam-boom" and the "E-i-e-i-o" so favoured by Old MacDonald?

[Pulcinella]

Some 'io' meaning suggestions here:

http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/5592/io-io-io/p1

Exclamation of joy
Contraction of In excelsis Deo
Contraction of ideo (therefore)

[jean]

I don't think it's an all-purpose interjection, except insofar as it's specifically derived from a frequently-heard (but imperfectly-understood) Latin word ending. Eg:

Unsers Herzens Wonne
Liegt in praesepio
Und leuchtet wie die Sonne
Matris in gremio...

[alycidon]

Thank you, Jean, Ferney, and Pulcinella. It does appear that there is no definitive meaning, but all the ones you have suggested are possibilities.

[french frank]

Last Sunday in church I was singing 'and io, io, io, by priests and people sungen' [...]
I don't know what it means. Does anyone?

Well, my dictionary gives Latin iō (Greek ἰώ; monosyllable or disyllable) as an interjection of joy, ho! hurrah!, as used by Plautus, Tibullus, Horace); but also of pain (Plautus, Tibullus). So the answer would be that it depends on the context: it's a shout of emotion.

[vinteuil]

.

... isn't it the Yorkshire "ay up"?

(I seem to recall from from my Wiltshire childhood we had an equivalent : "ooh aah")

[alycidon]

Thank you, everyone.