Re: I'm finally asking (re French)

On Nov 11, 6:06 am, Harlan Messinger
<hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
mb wrote:
On Nov 10, 1:17 pm, Harlan Messinger
...
While I'm at it, the name Le Chatelier,
is it not pronounce leh sha-tel-lyey?
Yes.

How's that?
Who (apart from Anglos) would ever understand it with that final
glide?

Anyone who understands Americans who speak French with a strong American
accent understand it. They may wince, but they understand it.

In context only, or almost.

We return
the favor by understanding them when they pronounce "th" like "s" and
replace "r" with those weird gargles in the back of the throat.

In context only, or almost.

And how come he can easily avoid the glide in "leh"?
How come he pluralizes?

No one would argue that he was intending to give a precise phonetic
rendering. Besides, he probably thinks (as many French people do) that
"les" is /le/

No, this seems to be a case of le is /le/. As you say, the /e/ value
is not phonemic except regionally

(which he would render "lay" or "ley"--as would I for a
casual audience) rather than /lE/.

Why would you mess things up with a glide when you know better (and
it's so easy to avoid, as shown by that leh)

You're welcome to give him a lesson
in French phonology if you'd like.

No such intention; just trying to understand how people think.

.