Sunday 17 April 2016

Ze trip to Panama

The German Wikipedia dictionary has a new article on the so-called Panama Papers. The transcription of the compound is given as [ˈpanaˌmaː ˈpeɪpəʳz]. If it is intended to reflect the German pronunciation, there are a few inaccuracies in it:
credit: Amazon/Beltz

  • Panama (country or city) is regularly pronounced /'panama/ in German with a (usually) short final vowel and no secondary stress according to DUDEN;
  • Papers is a bit more varied in its pronunciation because Germans either adapt it to their native phonology and say ['pe:pɐs] or try to pronounce it the English way and produce a diphthong in the first syllable and/or use an r-coloured schwa in the second syllable if they prefer a GA-like accent. They may stick to a final /s/ as is usual in German or use the lenis variant;
  • as a compound I would definitely not assign Papers another primary stress.