Unter all den tollen Sprachen, die es auf unserer halbwegs runden Erde gibt, gilt Englisch gemeinhin als eine der erfolgreichsten. Warum das so ist? Nun, viele sind der Ansicht, das liege daran, dass diese Sprache so wunderbar einfach ist. Da gibt’s kaum was zu lernen und es fliegt einem alles mehr oder weniger zu, wenn man nur genug englischsprachige Musik hört oder halt Serien im Original guckt. Kinderspiel!
So kommt es auch, dass erstaunlich viele Menschen glauben, sie würden echt gut Englisch sprechen. Dass dem nicht so ist, kann man ihnen ganz leicht beweisen – und zwar mit dem wunderbaren Gedicht „Chaos“ von Gerald Nolst Trenité:
Dearest creature in creation
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I: Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar.
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamor
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and droll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangor.
Soul but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, knob, bosom, transom, oath.
Through the differences seem little,
We say actual, but also victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, Conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succor, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye.
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, brass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging.
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation – think of Psyche!
Is it paling, stout and spiky?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give it up!!!
Wird übrigens auch von der US-Botschaft in Norwegen empfohlen, um mal seine Kennnissse zu testen:
http://norway.usembassy.gov/pronounce.html
Dort findet sich auch folgende Info:
This poem, entitled „Chaos“ first appeared in Drop Your Foreign Accent – Engelse Uitspraakoefeningen, by G. Nolst Trenite (5th rev. ed., H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1929). Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946) was a Dutch observer of English.
Hätten wir das also auch geklärt.
(Via irgendwo auf Facebook und thepoke.co.uk)
