The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1898-07-12
We chcerfulIy respond 20 The follow

We chcerfully respond 20 the follow
ing timely inquiry:
To The editor OF The News:
VIII you please tell your readers, II
you have any authority accessible. the
correct pronunciation of Admiral Cer-
veras namey
| hear IL pronounced variously most
commonly Ser-yee-rah taccenf on
second syllabie). which 1 think is in
correct. therefore 4 am undecided be-
tween Ser-ye-rah taccent on the first
sylieble). and Ser-vay-rah taccent on
the second syiiable). not knowing which
syllable In accented. H. H. T..
Bristol, II. l., July II. 1898.
The last pronunciation is In all prob
ability correct. Ser-vay-rah with the
accent on the second syllable. We sa,
lin all probability" so far as the ac-
cent goes because most American
newspapers, printed from machine-set
type. do not use accented letters. even
when they are necessary to correct pre-
nuncjstion and so such foreign words
az require an accent mark to make
their spelling as well as pronunciation
correct are by that omission misspelled
and cannot be relied upon for pronun-
citation. Accordingly, one cannot be
quite sure, from the name as printed
la the newspapers whether IL is prop
erly accented. or In other words, prop
eriy spelled for, when It is called for.
the accent is an impcvtant in the SPELL
ing as any OF the letters.
SO the fact that no accent appears
associated with any syllable of the
name cervera. as ordinarily printed,
does not wholly guarantee that no ac-
cent belongs to II. But not finding it
In 50 careful and correct a newspaper
as the Sun of New York, for instance,
IL is pretty safe to assume that there
is none as printed in pure CastiIian.
And IL there Is no accent to show TO
the contrary. the pronunciation places
1t on the next to the last syllable-as
ii. H. T. places 1t in his third sugges-
ton.
Briefly, then, the rule is that all
Spanish words ending in a vowel are
pronounced with the accent on the next
to the last syllable unless printed ac-
cent mark directs otherwise. Thus.
Panama IL correctly printed would
show an accent mark over the last "a"
thus jusiifying the familiar pronuncia-
tion. And the same with Peru"
as famiIiarIy and properly pro-
nounced should have an ac-
cent mark over the "u,' otherwise
the accentuation would be on the first
syllable. BY the mark are the excep-
lions to the rule OF accent on the penul-
Innate indicated.
For the rest, Spanish pronunciation
b equally simple and III. II. It's SPELL
Ing indicates that OF cervera quite
correctly. The letter "e" In Spanish
. pronounced as Tong a and the let
ter "a as "ah." A syllable "er'' is
pronounced much like the word ere"
or air." To affect the purest castilIan.
the &c" should not be pronounced as
''s' but as ''th." But this is likely 10
be taken as an affectation. especially
as In spenish-American countries and
among the uneducated classes in
Spain the pronunciation 's' for "ca is
considered good enough spanish. So /
II. ii. T. may be all right II he makes
4 ser-vay-rah or There-vay-rah
! soft "Th" Instead OF the hard English
sound. land the accent. according to
rule. on the pcnuItimate.
Cro,fob ss~~~~>sf - tt,... 4, |