Pronouncing the unpronounceable

[Csalem]

I've heard it pronounced Pah-der-ick.

People from west of Ireland would pronounce it like that. They are more "Oirish" than those on the east coast of Ireland.

 

[Christopher]

Kind of like how in Japanese, the concept of "si + o" is pronounced like "sho" in modern Japanese, but (I think) it evolved from being pronounced "see-o"

Acutally, just the "si" syllable in Japanese is pronounced "shi" (and spelled that way in the modern romanization scheme). I remember learning the syllables -- sa, shi, su, se, so. There is no syllable pronounced "see." "Sho" is just shi-o pronounced quickly. By the same token, the voiced equivalents are za, ji, zu, ze, zo, with "ji" also being spelled "zi" or "dzi" in older romanization schemes (which is why we have Godzilla and Gojira as alternate romanizations of the same name).

 

[Enterprise1701]

Acutally, just the "si" syllable in Japanese is pronounced "shi" (and spelled that way in the modern romanization scheme). I remember learning the syllables -- sa, shi, su, se, so. There is no syllable pronounced "see." "Sho" is just shi-o pronounced quickly. By the same token, the voiced equivalents are za, ji, zu, ze, zo, with "ji" also being spelled "zi" or "dzi" in older romanization schemes (which is why we have Godzilla and Gojira as alternate romanizations of the same name).

I know, that's why I said "evolved" from pre-modern times into "shee" pronunciation.

 

[Christopher]

Although really, the Japanese SH is a lot closer to an S than the English SH is. Often, when I watch Japanese movies or shows, it sounds to me like a sharply hissed S. When I pronounce an English SH, I'm touching my tongue to the roof of my mouth (hard palate) a bit further back than when I pronounce S, where the tip of the tongue is touching the alveolar ridge (just behind the teeth). When I say a Japanese SH, I have my tongue in about the same alveolar position as for S, but am expelling my breath more sharply. So they're actually two distinct sounds. A lot of Japanese consonants only have rough equivalents in English. It's always intrigued me how alien the two language families are to each other.