Milan Ilnyckyj: the new definitive guide to pronunciation
Those of you who have been around since the NSN days will find this familiar, but it seemed the time to dust it off and repost it.
Part I: Ilnyckyj
While it looks fearsome, this part of the name is quite easy. It is pronounced: ill-knit-ski, as in sick-crochet-snowboard.
Part II: Milan
For starters, how do you know if you are pronouncing it wrong?
If you pronounce the first syllable 'mah', as in "Mah name is Slim, what's y'urs?" you are pronouncing it wrong. If you pronounce it 'my', as in "My blasted quadruped has scampered," you are also pronouncing it wrong.
The first syllable is 'mill' as in: "Let's head down to the Old Mill, where I hear John Stewart Mill has cooked up his famous cider."
If you pronounce the second syllable 'lawn', you are pronouncing it wrong. This is especially bad if you used 'mah' as the first syllable, because then the two together sound like you're saying: "Mah lawn needs watering." Lynn, as in Lynn Creek or Linseed Oil, is also incorrect for the last syllable.
The right way to pronounce it is 'lhun', as in London.
The hardest part of all is properly timing and stressing those two syllables: mill-lhun. The l-sound should be pronounced twice, with a brief pause between them and the first l-sound lasting quite a bit longer than the second. This part takes practice, but frankly I would be rather pleased just to see the errors described above diminish somewhat in their frequent usage among my friends.
So, there you have it:
Milan Ilnyckyj = mill-lhun ill-knit-ski.
5 Comments
I'd just assumed it was pronouned 'Milan'...
I'm going to have to make one of these for myself pretty soon.
Now, I cannot be certain if this feeling is a result of several years getting accustomed to your style of speech and writing, but nevertheless I really do believe there is something about it a little bit extrordinary. (Something which shines through just a little brighter in expository or descriptive passages, this entry being a combination of those). It makes me hope that you do at some point become comfortable enough to write and publish fiction, or even write publicly consumable non-fiction (as in the Economist, or similar). Which reminds me, I still havn't actually read the fish paper, I think it is my Gmail inbox archives...
Tristan,
Thanks. One of my great hopes for the next ten years (along with completing a PhD and traveling almost everywhere) is to write either a book-length piece of fiction or a play. Right now, I am just trying to assemble enough experience and writing skill to make it anywhere near possible.
Regarding: "you are pronouncing it wrong," as commenting upon via email.
While some purists may assert that the proper form of the above idea would use the adverb 'wrongly,' I can only counter that the Oxford English Dictionary recognizes the use of the word 'wrong' in an adverbial sense since at least 1330 A.D. Moreover, it is necessary for producing the proper Hermione Granger-inspired state of priggishness, with regards to pronunciation.
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