How do you pronounce "Goncalo Alves"?

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Woodgrain

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Greetings all,
Please settle a bet and tell me the proper pronunciation of "Goncalo Alves". I have always said: gan sal' o al' vez, while another person foolishly insists it should be: gan' kal o alves with the second word as one syllable. Or are we both wrong? Thanks.
 
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Not much help to confirm, but I pronounce the first word like your buddy and the second word like you.
 
Woodgrain said:
Greetings all,
Please settle a bet and tell me the proper pronunciation of "Goncalo Alves". I have always said: gan sal' o al' vez, while another person foolishly insists it should be: gan' kal o alves with the second word as one syllable. Or are we both wrong? Thanks.
Click to expand...
You are more correct than he is, but it is Gŏn-să-lō ăll-vāz. I have a magazine article here somewhere that shows the correct pronunciation for a lot of different names that are pronounced wrong all the time.


Like these two in particular-

Leupold=Loop old not lea pold
Sako =Socko not Say ko
 
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In Oklahoma we say okree, akern, warsh and rinch.

I've always said it gone kay low - al vays.

But...like I said...I'm an Okie. :D
 
This is taken from the Hogue website-

Our two most popular hardwoods are GONCALO ALVES (GON-SA-LO AL-VES) and PAU FERRO (PAW FAIR'-RO). Goncalo Alves is very popular and is certainly one of our favorites. PAU FERRO is also a favorite, with rich beautiful figure that resembles fancy dark walnut. Goncalo Alves and Pau Ferro are among the hardest and most durable woods in the world.
 
This is a humorous thread, but I must admit that I had no idea how to pronounce it either. I do like the Okie pronunciation, pretty close to standard Texan.
 
Goncalo Alves

Always learn something. Had no idea the original word was from Portuguese and had the cedilla on the "c". Wikipedia says this:

The most frequent character with cedilla is "ç" ("c" with cedilla, as in façade). It was first used for the sound of the voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/ in old Spanish and stems from the Visigothic form of the letter "z" (ʒ), whose upper loop was lengthened and reinterpreted as a "c", whereas its lower loop became the diminished appendage, the cedilla.

It represents the "soft" sound /s/ where a "c" would normally represent the "hard" sound /k/ (before "a", "o", "u", or at the end of a word), in Basque, Catalan, (occasionally) English, French, Occitan, and Portuguese.

Thanks, guys.

Regards,

Dyson
 
DGNY said:
Always learn something. Had no idea the original word was from Portuguese and had the cedilla on the "c". Wikipedia says this:

The most frequent character with cedilla is "ç" ("c" with cedilla, as in façade). It was first used for the sound of the voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/ in old Spanish and stems from the Visigothic form of the letter "z" (ʒ), whose upper loop was lengthened and reinterpreted as a "c", whereas its lower loop became the diminished appendage, the cedilla.

It represents the "soft" sound /s/ where a "c" would normally represent the "hard" sound /k/ (before "a", "o", "u", or at the end of a word), in Basque, Catalan, (occasionally) English, French, Occitan, and Portuguese.

Thanks, guys.

Regards,

Dyson
Click to expand...

Cedilla?!? Wasn't there a movie called "King Kong versus Cedilla"?

If not, then I have no idea what a Cedilla is!

I'm going to have to assume that what you say is true, because what you said is WAY over my head! Thank you, however; I'm sure there is someone out there who understands what you said. I've never known how to pronounce the name of the wood. I wish there were some recordings of the different ways people pronounce it. The different phonetical spellings I find hard to understand.
 
Goncalo Alves

Someone here undoubtedly knows the Portuguese academic side of this.

Mebbe "goN-sah'-lu ahl'-vesh" is close.

Experts? [Not I!]

Regards,

Dyson
 
Like the surname Gonzalez, but with "o-alv" in front of the last vowel.

Maybe we can start a movement to call it Gonzalez and explain that it's a contraction. For the spelling purists, we could throw in an apostrophe: Gonzal'ez.

Or maybe just go straight to Gonçalves, since that is a common Portuguese surname. Hmm! Wonder where that came from? :D
 
Uh, voiceless alveolar affricates? Golly. My thanks to all who have replied, but I think we'll just split the six-pak and call it a day.
 
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