Talk:Outaouais

message: I deleted the sentence saying that the Outaouais is Quebec's 3rd largest region in population. This is not possible, since Montreal, Laval, Montérégie, and Capitale-Nationale (and maybe others) are more populated.
Emile 15:53, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. Actually, Chaudière-Appalaches, Lanaudière, and Laurentides also beat it, making it eighth. Eighth out of seventeen puts it right in the middle. However, on a different point, this article lacks a map, like the other ones have. Backspace 17:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This article currently gives only the French pronunciation of Outaouais. The English pronunciation should be given as well. In fact, the English pronunciation is more important than the French is in this article, not because English is a more important language but because:
# This is the English Wikipedia, so the vast majority of its readers speak English, and only a minority of them also speak French. As editors of the English Wikipedia, we must assume that English is the only language our readers know;
# French speakers will already know (or be able to guess with considerable accuracy) how pronounce the word, so they don't need to be told;
# It is impossible just looking at the word for an English-only speaker even to guess how to pronounce Outaouais (unlike "Quebec", for example. I know I don't pronounce Quebec the way a French speaker would, but at least I can get close enough that a French Canadian would understand what I was trying to say if he wanted to). If I were forced to say "Outaouais", I can hardly begin to imagine what I'd say, except to pronounce "Out-" either like the English word "out" or like "oot" (as in "boot"). But how I'd pronounce that string of five vowels is almost impossible even to guess, since such formations don't occur in English words. I can think of two ways I might try: to ignore a vowel or two and the s and say something like "oo-too-way", or to try pronouncing each vowel separately and end up with six or seven syllables, which cannot be right;
#The Quebec article identifies Outaouais as one of the areas in the province with a significant English-speaking population (which is how I got here), so it's almost certain that there is an English pronunciation.
If the intention in giving only the French pronunciation is to try to encourage English speakers to use the French pronunciation, that is presumptuous, inappropriate and certain to fail. It's not our place to try to manipulate how readers pronounce foreign-language place names. We can tell them how the French pronounce "Paris", and if they want to try to pronounce it the same way they can; but our primary responsibility is to tell them how it's pronounced in English, the language they actually speak:
This article should follow that article's excellent example.
If, on the other hand, the English speakers in Outaouais use an entirely different name for the region, instead of pronouncing the French name using English phonemic norms, then there may be no English pronunciation of Outaouais. If that is the case, then the name which English Canadians use when they speak of the region should be given in this article as a synonym for Outaouais.
--Jim10701 (talk) 14:03, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  English pronunciation?