# Pronunciation: Sandro Rosell



## LoveVanPersie

How is _Sandro Rosell_ pronounced in central Catalan?
Is _Sandro_ a Spanish name so pronounced with an unreduced _o_? After looking it up on dictionaries, I think so but I'm not 100% sure.
I heard _Rosell_ pronounced /ruˈ*s*eʎ/ on some YouTube videos (most of which on the channel TV3), with intervocalic _s_ pronounced /s/ instead of /z/. Did I mishear it? As for the /e/, althouth I can't distinguish between it and /ɛ/, DCVB says it comes from _ros_ + diminitive suffix _-ell_, which is transcribed /ˈeʎ/ on Wiktionary.


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## Dymn

LoveVanPersie said:


> How is _Sandro Rosell_ pronounced in central Catalan?


/ˈsandɾu ˈruseʎ/.

On a side note, there's some tendency in Central Catalan, mainly in Barcelona, to pronounce even Catalan surnames without reducing the _o_, for example _Colau _as /k*o*ˈlau̯/ or _Rosell _as /ˈr*o*seʎ/, but I'd advise against it.



LoveVanPersie said:


> Is _Sandro_ a Spanish name so pronounced with an unreduced _o_? After looking it up on dictionaries, I think so but I'm not 100% sure.


I don't think so. It's just a nickname of his official name which is _Alexandre_, which is Catalan. I've always heard it /ˈsandɾ*u*/.



LoveVanPersie said:


> I heard _Rosell_ pronounced /ruˈ*s*eʎ/ on some YouTube videos (most of which on the channel TV3), with intervocalic _s_ pronounced /s/ instead of /z/. Did I mishear it?


No, you're right. The pronunciation is correct, _ros_ takes voiceless /s/ in its derivatives: _rossa, rossos... _It's the spelling which probably at some point was Castilianized (because Spanish has no such distinction and only spells one _s_). In the standard this would be _Ro*ss*ell._



LoveVanPersie said:


> As for the /e/, althouth I can't distinguish between it and /ɛ/, DCVB says it comes from _ros_ + diminitive suffix _-ell_, which is transcribed /ˈeʎ/ on Wiktionary.


Yes, with /e/.


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## LoveVanPersie

Dymn said:


> to pronounce even Catalan surnames without reducing the _o_


Excluding first names and other words?



Dymn said:


> /ˈruseʎ/.





Dymn said:


> _Rosell _as /ˈr*o*seʎ/


Is the stress symbol on the first syllable a typo?



Dymn said:


> I don't think so. It's just a nickname of his official name which is _Alexandre_, which is Catalan. I've always heard it /ˈsandɾ*u*/.


I know _Alexandre_ is Catalan, but _Sandro_ seems a Spanish nickname of the Spanish equivalent _Alejandro_. And I think I have heard the _o_ unreduced...


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## Dymn

LoveVanPersie said:


> Excluding first names and other words?


Yes.



LoveVanPersie said:


> Is the stress symbol on the first syllable a typo?


Yes, sorry.



LoveVanPersie said:


> And I think I have heard the _o_ unreduced...


It's possible, but I think it's usually pronounced /u/.


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## Olaszinhok

LoveVanPersie said:


> but _Sandro_ seems a Spanish nickname


Sandro is certainly an Italian name.


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## LoveVanPersie

Dymn said:


> It's possible, but I think it's usually pronounced /u/.


But on 3 videos where _Sandro_ was pronounced clearly enough for me to identify, it was only /-o/. A coincidence?...  They are:
_Andrés Maluenda, advocat de Sandro Rosell, explica com s'ha viscut la seva absolució_ (at 0:52)
_TV3 - Hat-trick Barça - Hat-trick Barça: entrevista a Sandro Rosell_ (at 2:00)
_Les últimes hores de Sandro Rosell - Crackòvia - TV3_ (at 0:08)

Did newscasters you heard really mostly pronounce /-u/?




Dymn said:


> No, you're right. The pronunciation is correct, _ros_ takes voiceless /s/ in its derivatives: _rossa, rossos... _It's the spelling which probably at some point was Castilianized (because Spanish has no such distinction and only spells one _s_). In the standard this would be _Ro*ss*ell._


How about _Rosel_ of _Laura Rosel?_ I heard it pronounced in Spanish way on 2 YouTube videos of TV3.


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## Doraemon-

Sandro is a familiar name for Alejandro (from the Spanish voice). In standard eastern catalan it would be /ˈsandɾu/ but you can hear it both ways because it can be pronounced as in Spanish, being a Spanish word.

It's similar with Rosell. In catalan it's Rossell, with two S, so /s/ and not /z/. It's pronounced /ruˈ*s*eʎ/, but many surnames follow a Spanish ortography. Reading it in Catalan from the Spanish ortography of the original Catalan word it would be /ruˈzeʎ/ (as wikipedia states). In Spanish it's /roˈseʎ/. So you can hear it in several ways, although /ruˈseʎ/ is the most common one.

Please notice that the stress in the surname is in the last syllable (there has been some involuntary mistake in the responses).


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## LoveVanPersie

Doraemon- said:


> In Spanish it's /roˈseʎ/.


Isn't it /-l/ because in Spanish there isn't /ʎ/ in the coda?


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## Dymn

LoveVanPersie said:


> Are you sure newscasters you heard mostly pronounced /-u/?


No, I'm not  . I've watched some other videos and they also say /o/. Weird. I don't know what do you need those pronunciations for, but I guess both could go. Let's wait for more Central Catalan speakers.



LoveVanPersie said:


> How about _Rosel_ of _Laura Rosel?_ I heard it pronounced in Spanish way on 2 YouTube videos of TV3.


Yes, that's the pronunciation they used at _FAQS _when she presented the program. I don't think the surname is Catalan anyway.


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## LoveVanPersie

Thanks for your patient answers again! These pronunciations are only for myself to read. I'm kind of an obsessive...


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## Penyafort

It is true that _Sandro _is rather Italian than Catalan, as it seems to come from Alessandro. The correct short form for the Catalan _Alexandre _is _*Xandre*_, as Catalan short forms are traditionally produced by using the final syllables of a name, not the first ones. That means that neither Àlex or Sandro are really Catalan. However, they are far more used than Xandre, particularly Àlex. Sandro isn't as common. The female form Sandra is very common, though. People often don't even associate it with Alexandra any more. It is also true that some varieties add an -o to the short forms. In Valencian it's relatively common . And they don't reduce -o's into u.

Regarding Rossell, the fact of seeing it with non-standard spellings such as Rosel, Russel, etc, doesn't make it less Catalan. It is not exclusively Catalan though, but rather from the whole Gallo-Romance area as a typical derivative of the word _*ros *_(which means blond/redhead in Catalan but also in Occitan and Old French, today _roux _in French) plus the diminutive suffix *-ell*. From the same origin, via Old French, comes the English surname Russell. 

Yet the fact that it's the same surname with a different spelling (I'm talking about Rosel now) doesn't seem reason enough to some Catalans and they prefer to read it either as [ru'zeʎ] or worse, interpreting that it is Spanish, which isn't, [ro'sel].

However, as it's often the case with names, the owner decides. So maybe the newcasters know what the owner likes to be called like, and so they just do the obvious.


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## LoveVanPersie

Nice to know them! Thanks for your detailed explanation Penyafort! By the way, as soon as I saw your name, I wondered its pronunciation again... Is the IPA /ˌpɛɲəˈfɔɾ/ on Wikipedia correct?
You don't need to reply if you feel disturbed.


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## Doraemon-

LoveVanPersie said:


> Isn't it /-l/ because in Spanish there isn't /ʎ/ in the coda?



No. Many Castilian speakers don't know how to pronounce an ending -ll, not existing in Castilian/Spanish, so it's very common to hear _Sabadel, Rosel_, etc. (or _Sabadei, Rosei_...) from Spanish speakers out of Catalan speaking areas, but the "correct" pronounciation is with an /ʎ/ (and especially if you pronounce in Catalan a Catalan word, even if it's written following Spanish ortography).


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## Penyafort

LoveVanPersie said:


> By the way, as soon as I saw your name, I wondered its pronunciation again... Is the IPA /ˌpɛɲəˈfɔɾ/ on Wikipedia correct?



Many certainly would say it that way, as t's are often silent after liquid consonants. But I pronounce the -t in _fort _and I do so too in _penyafort,_ just as I do in_ aeroport, julivert, _etc_. _

PS: When speaking fast, sometimes I drop them, that's also true.


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## LoveVanPersie

Gràcies!


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