Pronunciation Key

To make the experience of South Slavic epic more realistic, I offer the following brief pronunciation key, intended for the nonspecialist. The reader may use it to approximate the sound of singers’ and characters’ names, for example, or of various words and phrases in the original language. Of course, the best source for the sounds of the performance itself is the audio file.

Consonants pronounced approximately like their English counterparts:

 
b, d, f, g (hard, as in “get”), k, l, m, n, p, s, t, v, z

Consonants without direct English counterparts:

 
c
[ts], as in rats
 
ć
[tch], ch pronounced at the front of the mouth
 
č
[ch], ch pronounced further back in the mouth, as in chair
 
j
[y], as in toy or yes
 
dj
[dy], as in the phrase and you
 
lj
[ly], as in million
 
nj
[ny], as in the phrase on your
 
h
similar to English, but rougher, more aspirated (like German ch)
 
š
[sh], as in show
 
ž
[zh], as in azure
 
dž
[j], as in judge
 
r
trilled or rolled sound, as in three in some British dialects; often in Spanish

Vowels:

 
a
[a], as in mantra
 
e
[e], as in set
 
i
[ee], as in tree
 
o
[o], as in soft
 
u
[oo], as in moon
 
r
trilled or rolled vocalic sound

Vowels can be temporally long or short; vowel sound does not vary with duration. For present purposes, I omit all tonal and accentual qualities because tone and accent are well beyond the scope of analysis in this volume.