Pronouncing Habari
10 Jan, 07
Since the question has been raised how to pronounce Habari:
In X-SAMPA, it would be transcribed as
- [hA”b_<A:ri]
with stress on the second to last syllable (“ba”), and
- h, as in ‘house’
- A, as in ‘father’, but short
- b_<, like a normal b, but suck the air IN (this sound does not exist in any Western language I know)
- A:, as in ‘father’ again, but slightly longer than before (due to the primary stress)
- r, as in Spanish ‘claro’ or Finnish ‘perkele’ (an alveolar trill)
- i, as in ‘be’
My (admittedly rather bad) rendering is here:
[audio:http://moeffju.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/habari.mp3]
If you’re a native speaker of Swahili, please make a recording and send it to me!
