Tuesday 21 May 2019

/ʒ/ in words and phrases derived from French

The consonant /ʒ/ appeared in English after the Old English period and it is still impossible to find in words that are originally Germanic. This post focuses not on well-known words containing /ʒ/, such as television, but more foreign-sounding and looking words. Note that the pronunciation is Anglicised according to RP rules: it is not original French pronunciation.
I used Cambridge Dictionary at https://dictionary.cambridge.org to write this exercise.

Ex. Decode the orthographic spelling of the following transcribed words and phrases. Note that some of the words use diacritics which do not usually occur in English.

1. /ˌʒə nə seɪ ˈkwɑː/ 2. /ˌdeɪ.ʒɑː ˈvuː/ 3. /ˌməʊ ˈʒuːst/ 
4. /ˌbon vɔɪˈɑːʒ/ 5. /ˌdeɪ.kuːˈpɑːʒ/ 6. /ˌdeɪ.kɒl.ɪˈtɑːʒ/


KEY
1. je ne sais quoi, 2. déjà vu, 3. mot juste, 4. bon voyage, 5. découpage, 6.
décolletage

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