Pronouncing "ubuntu"

[Duncan Anderson]

On Thursday, 2 March 2006 01:36, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Hi,
>
> So today was a sloooow day in Cape Town. When the sun wasn't shining
> it was either raining, misty or blowing a gale force wind. And the
> phone rang twice all day, but that's because today is a public
> holiday.
>
> Seeing as the devil makes work for idle hands, Cape Town is probably
> the spiritual home of Ubuntu, and I'm bored to tears at 01:33am, I
> thought I'd liven up my life a bit and ask one simple innocent enough
> question:
>
> How many people in the world-wide Ubuntu community can pronounce the
> name correctly? (Tip: there's no "Y" sound in it)

Well, if you want to get finicky about it, the proper pronunciation in 
isiZulu, isiXhosa or SiSwati is "uˈɓu:ntu". If you don't have phonetic fonts 
enabled, that may look a bit strange. I shall try to describe the "correct"  
pronunciation:

u - "oo" as in "look", but short, with a low tone
bun - "boon" as in "boon", but long, with a low tone and no aspiration on the 
"b"
ntu - "to" as in "to go", short, with a high tone, no aspiration on the "t"

It is fiendishly difficult to convey the tonal qualities of Nguni languages 
using a written medium. :-)

Of course, "Ubuntu" as in "Ubuntu Linux" is no longer the same word (having 
become a proper noun) as, quoting the dictionary on www.isizulu.net:

ubuntu [uˈɓu:ntu] (-ntu) n. humanity

This definition is somewhat curt. The meaning is more like "human spirit" or 
"the quality of being human/humane". It's a difficult word to translate.

How's that for pedantic? ;-)

cheers
Duncan



		
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