Re: Pronunciation of "pean"?
- From: "Madalch" <madalch@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 7 Jul 2005 15:27:22 -0700
It's pronounced "peen" by all the people I've heard mention it, but if
you said "pee-an", I think every heraldist would know what you're
talking about. Most of the heraldic terms, I think, are somewhat
flexible in their pronounciation.
Some information on pronunciations can be found in Friar's or
Brooke-Little's dictionaries (under, you guessed it, "pronunciation").
There was also a very good article on the subject (in my opinion,
anyway) in the second issue of The Prairie Tressure, which I reproduce
below.
____________________________
Terms in Heraldry
One of the things that many prairie heraldists seem to always disagree
on is the pronunciation of heraldic terms. This may be due to the very
low density of heraldists in the area, which forces people to do most
of their learning by reading rather than listening. One school of
thought maintains that the terms are obviously French and should thus
follow French pronunciation, with final consonants being silent. The
opposing school insists that these words have been in the English
language for 800 years and thus have had time to be anglicized- one
does not pronounce other French-derived words (such as centimetre,
pork, beef, cavalier, antler or venison) as if they were still
French.[1]
To settle this matter, your editor traveled to London to ask the
experts at the College of Arms. Lancaster and Windsor Heralds were
both very helpful (not to mention extremely kind) in addressing this
concern. The consensus was that the heralds themselves did not
completely agree on some terms, and that with many words it didn't
really matter, but that the words should follow the English, not
French, pronunciations. Upon arriving home, your editor also found an
article in which Lt. Cdr. Alan Beddoe made exactly the same claim.[2]
Thus:
Gules (red): Rhymes with "rules", although the g may be hard or
soft (depending, apparently, on whether one is more familiar with
ghouls or jewels). "Gyools" is also acceptable.
Azure (blue): AZ-yer or AZH-yer.
Vert (green): Rhymes with "shirt". In this case the pronunciation
does matter, as to pronounce it in a French fashion would make it
indistinguishable from vair, which is something else completely.
Vair (a fur, normally blue and white): Rhymes with "hair".
Sable (black): SAY-bull.
Purpure (purple): Purr-PURE or PURR-pure.
Argent (white): Ar-JENT (rhymes with sergeant, not Dijon).
Or (yellow): Rhymes with "oar", "or" or "ore".
Ermine (white with black ermine spots): Rhymes with "German".
Erminois (yellow with black ermine spots): Either ER-min-NOISE or
ER-min-WA.
Ermines (black with white ermine spots): ER-min-NESS
Pean (black with yellow ermine spots): PEEN
Tressure: Rhymes with "dresser".
Fleur-de-lys: Due to the strong French associations with this charge,
it will probably continue to be pronounced (in Canada, at least) as if
French, with the final "s" silent. At the College of Arms, the
final "s" is pronounced. (And in some parts of Alberta, it seems
to be pronounced "That French thing".)
1) Also, medieval French was surely not pronounced in exactly the same
way as modern French, any more than Chaucer's English would have been
pronounced like modern English.
2) Heraldry in Canada, Vol. III, No. 3, September 1969, p. 28.
(Author, Darren S. A. George, The Prairie Tressure, Vol. 1, No. 2-3,
Summer/Fall 2003 ISSN 1708 9506)
_______________________________
Feel free to argue.
(This email is munged- substitute canada for starmail)
.
- References:
- Pronunciation of "pean"?
- From: "Bruce Tindall"
- Pronunciation of "pean"?
- Prev by Date: Pronunciation of "pean"?
- Next by Date: Re: Feudal titles
- Previous by thread: Pronunciation of "pean"?
- Next by thread: Re: Pronunciation of "pean"?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
