# Krzysztof Penderecki



## Namakemono

Can anyone tell me how to pronounce this composer's name?


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## GyörgyMS

Krzysztof:
Pronounce 'rz' and 'sz' like English shoe. 'rz' actually is pronounced 'zh', but because of the 'k' it turns rather to 'sz' i.e. 'sh'.

The 'y' is pronounced like 'it'.

Penderecki:

The 'e's are pronounced like 'pet'.

The 'ck' is pronounced like cats + k.

The 'r' is rolled like in Scottish and Spanish.

Since I'm neither a native speaker of Polish nor English, my pronounciation examples might not be correct.

Better check out this file: www*cs*rit*edu/~spr/polish/v*au

Note: Replace the '*' with '.'

GyörgyMS


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## Namakemono

Thank you! I'll spend the next five minutes trying to pronounce that.


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## slowik

What GyörgyMS wrote is correct.

If you'll ever have any doubts about the prononunciation of any polish name and you don't have much time, you can always try Wikipedia. Almost every page about anything strictly polish has either an audio file with the pronounciation or the IPA code for it.


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## beclija

Just a sidenote: Accent in Polish is on the second but last syllable. So, with György's pronounciation hints for the individual sounds, make sure it's Krz*y*sztof Pender*e*cki.


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## Namakemono

slowik said:


> What GyörgyMS wrote is correct.
> 
> If you'll ever have any doubts about the prononunciation of any polish name and you don't have much time, you can always try Wikipedia. Almost every page about anything strictly polish has either an audio file with the pronounciation or the IPA code for it.


 
I tried that, but I see blocks instead of letters.


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## dn88

Hi,

 Check out this.
 Choose  "*Ewa* Żeński głos polskojęzyczny" or "*Jacek *Męski głos polskojęzyczny". Afterwards type *Krzysztof Penderecki *in the window above and finally click ODCZYTAJ. Maybe their pronunciation is not impeccable, but I think you should try out this speech synthesizer.


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## Namakemono

Thanks! That was very helpful.


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## Spectre scolaire

GyörgyMS said:
			
		

> Pronounce 'rz' and 'sz' like English shoe. 'rz' actually is pronounced 'zh', but because of the 'k' it turns rather to 'sz' i.e. 'sh'.


Of course, this is correct (as _slowik_ confirms in #4). But I’d like to add a small detail.

When the pronunciation of the digraph *rz* is not devoiced because of initial [k] – as f.ex. in the name of the city Rzeszów - it is pronounced like French je. _But not entirely_ – as far as I have observed.

Polish is characterized by three _sibilants_ which in traditional Polish orthography are written as *s*, *ś* and *sz* – just to mention the unvoiced ones. The interesting thing with this rather unusual phonemic inventory feature is that you need to “push the extremes”, i.e. the *s* and the *sz*, away from *ś* in order to give the latter a distinctive character.

The result is, at least for the *sz* (and consequently the voiced version *rz*) that these are not _palatal_, but rather _cacuminal_ sounds. The difference between French char and Polish Rzeszów is therefore conspicuous. It is kind of a paradox that the French *s* seems to be pronounced “sharper” than the Polish *s* – as if the “concession” in terms of going to the “extreme ends” of the sibilants in Polish is only being done on one side.

Compared to the Polish _three_ sibilants, Spanish and Standard Modern Greek only have _one_ which means that it has some “liberty of action”, as it were, along the sibilant line from Polish *sz* to *s* (or vice versa). As a result of this, a Pole would invariably consider the Spanish (orthographical) *s* and Standard Modern Greek *σ *as very much like the Pοlish *ś* - the Polish “middle way” in terms of sibilants.
 ś ​


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## Namarne

Namakemono said:


> Can anyone tell me how to pronounce this composer's name?


In Spanish, we would pronounce it something like: 
Kshíshtof Penderétski.


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## Jago

dn88 said:


> Hi,
> 
> Check out this.
> Choose "*Ewa* Żeński głos polskojęzyczny" or "*Jacek *Męski głos polskojęzyczny". Afterwards type *Krzysztof Penderecki *in the window above and finally click ODCZYTAJ. Maybe their pronunciation is not impeccable, but I think you should try out this speech synthesizer.


 
Yeah. Just a caution for future. I just checked it. It says 'Krzysztof Penderecki' pretty cool and proper, but I tried 'Sienkiewicz', and Ewa says 'Siedemkiewicz'. Amazing.


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## Spectre scolaire

Namarne said:
			
		

> In Spanish, we would pronounce it something like:
> Kshíshtof Penderétski.


Referring to my contribution #9, I am surprised! The sound which you describe as _sh_ and which, for all intents and purposes, corresponds to English _sh_ as in _shoe_, does not exist in Spanish!

Do you go out of your way to pronounce more correctly than your Spanish phonemic inventory permits in order to pay tribute to this eminent musician? 

A Greek would use his only available sibilant, a sound which acoustically is a spitting image of the Spanish one – and, incidentally, of the Polish ś! The perception of such a sibilant among speakers who have “only” _two_ sibilants in their language – i.e. the most common distribution – would invariably be rather an [s] than a [sh], the latter representing here the IPA grapheme which looks like the symbol used in _integral calculus_. The reason for this perception is probably that a Polish _ś_ is not enough _marked_ phonetically to be able to enter, so to say, into the domain of integral calculus and its sign...

There is a thread http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=92728 about _All Slavic languages: Sibilants_, but it does not focus on the three sibilants in Polish.
 ś ​


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