Pronunciation of ukulele

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Before I started listening to and playing uke, I never questioned the name of the tiny guitar instrument. It was clearly pronounced yoo-ka-lay-lee. The correct Hawaiian pronunciation is oo-koo-lay-lay. According to hawaiian-words. In Hawaiian, the vowels are pronounced: ah a , eh e , ee i , oh o , oo u and the easiest way to pronounce a Hawaiian word is to break it down into syllables A-lo-ha, or in our case u-ku-le-le. Now that you know how to pronounce ukulele, what happens when somebody asks about your awesome yoo-ka-lay-lee?

Pronunciation of ukulele

I was gonna post a link to that video in the comments but you beat me to it! Love it! I cringe everytime I hear a non-Hawaiian say Ook oo lay lay. People do so love proving that they're "right. Mark Kermode makes a point of saying "ook," citing the Hawaiian origin, whereas I generally go with "yook" because that's what performers like Cliff Edwards said. It simply doesn't matter outside of minor linguistic interest and childish point scoring. In the early days there wasn't even a consensus on how to spell the word, let alone say it, as can be seen in sheet music for "When old Bill Bailey plays the ukalele" from and other sources. Pronounce something wrong long enough until it becomes the correct and acceptable. One could easily argue that the '-oke' bit of karaoke was initially a bastardisation of an English word by the Japanese. I think that the one of the beauties of the English language is her ability to borrow words from other languages and use them as her own. It would soon become ridiculous if we pronounced every word of foreign origin in the same way as it has been pronounced in the original language. Yeah - Americans have done that with many English words too. What's the difference?

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A lie told many times over becomes a truth , and the cool Hawaiian instrument- Ukulele has long been a victim of this. With scores of alternative pronunciations of the word Ukulele doing the rounds, the original version has now been forgotten. Popular does not mean right. The Ukulele has its roots in Hawaii and it is only fair that their pronunciation of the word is deemed the correct one. Fortunately for us, the pronunciations of the repeated letters are the same, making it easy to remember them. How simple is that!

It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and construction. Ukuleles commonly come in four sizes: soprano, concert, tenor, and baritone. A patron of the arts, he incorporated it into performances at royal gatherings. In the Hawaiian language the word ukulele roughly translates as "jumping flea", [9] perhaps because of the movement of the player's fingers. One of the earliest appearances of the word ukulele in print in the sense of a stringed instrument is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art 's Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments of All Nations published in

Pronunciation of ukulele

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio. More about phonetic symbols. What is the definition of ukulele? Browse UKIP. Word of the Day rules are made to be broken. Read More. February 26, Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:.

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Appreciate the instrument for what it is and remember its roots. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. There's something jarring when a word is pronounced in a way that seems incongruous to the setting. I told him that if he is going to take that position, then he needs to make sure he finds the original spelling and pronunciation of each word he uses to make sure that he is spelling and pronouncing them correctly. Pin It on Pinterest. Fortunately for us, the pronunciations of the repeated letters are the same, making it easy to remember them. English—Italian Italian—English. Not to mention disease. Click on the arrows to change the translation direction. Anonymous 23 May at BST. Of course, I don't know which sources may be more accurate, or even if they are really at odds it's entirely possible that newspaper editors coined the 'aluminium' variation which was later endorsed by Sir Davy.

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Jon 5 April at BST. Joined Mar 21, Messages Reaction score 0. Then, of course, hoping to protect their investment, they make beach access tough for locals and pave the smallest parking lot they can get away with. There's something jarring when a word is pronounced in a way that seems incongruous to the setting. Hi Barry, great rant! Replies 48 Views 5K. Try not to let it bother you. I think that any spelling and pronunciation that has been established as a standard somewhere must be considered correct. Or i say ukulele. They were a very healthy, happy, strong people. My account. Its been 6 years since our last tr. Want to be the first to know about new hand crafted electric ukuleles? But i do like the Hawaiian pronunciation.