# Pronunciation of the surname Palou.



## Michael Zwingli

Francesc Palou, known in Castilian as Francisco Palóu, originally from Mallorca, was an early Franciscan explorer in California. I am wondering how his surname is pronounced in Catalan. In French, this would be pronounced "Pah-loo", and the obvious Castilian pronunciation is as "Pah-ló-oo", with the stress on the "-lo-". How is this pronounced in the original Catalan? Feel free to include IPA notation if you are able. @Penyafort, this might be right up your alley!

Thanks in advance.


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## Circunflejo

pə'lᴐw


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## Penyafort

Circunflejo is right. Unstressed a's are schwas, and -ou is most usually /ᴐw/.

If one wants to be even more accurate, the l would be dark too /ɫ/.


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## Agró

/pəlɔ́w/
source

I'm intrigued about this:


Michael Zwingli said:


> ...and the obvious Castilian pronunciation is as "Pah-ló-oo", with the stress on the "-lo-"


Three syllables? We pronounce just two, with a diphthong, both in Catalan and in Castilian. That is, pə-lɔ́w, not pə-lɔ́-u.


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## Michael Zwingli

Thank you, my friends. I see that the pronunciation is similar in both dialects. Tell me, is the "o" as stressed in Catalan as it is in Castilian?


Agró said:


> Three syllables? We pronounce just two, with a diphthong...That is, pə-lɔ́w, not pə-lɔ́-u.


You have correctly discerned the way in which I was mistaken, thinking the "u" to be vocalic, rather than consonantal in nature. Now I know better!

While we are on the subject of correct pronunciation in Iberian languages, this brings up a separate question which I have had in the back of my mind for some time. How is the Basque suffixational definite article, _-oa_, correctly pronounced in both Basque and in Spanish, as in the surname _Otxoa/Ochoa_ ("the wolf")? I have wondered this for some time, but never enough to have inquired.


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## Agró

There's a specific forum for that:
Other Languages
Native Basque speakers will be glad to help, but in the meantime I'll say that *Ochoa/Otxoa* is pronounced /o.'ʧo.a/ (3 syllables, vowels as in Spanish).


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## Penyafort

Michael Zwingli said:


> I see that the pronunciation is similar


They may look similar, but properly only the p- and the -u sound exactly the same.


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## Michael Zwingli

Agró said:


> There's a specific forum for that...


Yes, I realize that. Just thought I might slip that in quickly, as we were discussing a related topic.

Thank you all for the help!


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