Tamil script is reasonably phonetic. You can usually predict pronunciation pretty well from the spelling. Vowels in Tamil are either short or long; each of the five primary vowels occurs in both short and long forms. The long and short forms differ a little bit in quality, but the most striking difference is duration. Vowel length is much more prominent than word stress. Sources are sketchy, but I think there is usually a weak stress on the first syllable of each word. Learners are frequently advised to keep syllable stress as even as possible. The first three vowels of "Srinivasa" (the mathematician's patronymic, or father's name) are long; the last is short. The closest I can come to suggest the correct pronunciation is "shree-nee-vaah-suh". In "Ramanujan", his given name, only the first two vowels are long. So it starts "raah-maah-". The third vowel is a short u, pronounced like the "oo" in "good", not like "oo" in "food". The last vowel is "uh", like the "u" in "bun" or the "a" in "human". Wikipedia gives the IPA as /ʃriːnivɑːsə rɑːmɑːn ʊdʒən/ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English>, but I think they should have marked the second i as long. The Wikipedia article has a clip of a native Tamil speaker pronouncing the name. On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Dan Asimov <asimov@msri.org> wrote:
I heard years ago from an old Indian mathematician friend that, as has been said, the name is correctly pronounced:
rah-mah-noo-j'n,
though note that the third syllable is noo (no Y sound), and I'm less than certain that the last syllable is pronounced as a schwa.
This audio pronunciation by one Komal_K sounds right to me:
http://forvo.com/word/srinivasa_ramanujan/ < http://forvo.com/word/srinivasa_ramanujan/>.
(But it also seems to illustrate the dropping of the final A in "Srinivasa" — which I had not known of.)
—Dan
On May 26, 2016, at 5:44 AM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Someone from South India once told me that all four syllables of "Ramanujan" should be given the same stress.
Jim Propp
On Thursday, May 26, 2016, Dan Asimov <asimov@msri.org> wrote:
On May 25, 2016, at 3:49 PM, Simon Plouffe <simon.plouffe@gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
the film : The man who knew infinity went out, with Jeremy Irons as G.H. Hardy.
based on the novel I presume ?
The book was a non-fiction biography:
<http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Knew-Infinity-Ramanujan/dp/0671750615 < http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Knew-Infinity-Ramanujan/dp/0671750615>>.
I read it when it came out, and liked it a lot.
—Dan
That version of the life of Ramanujan seems good,
I saw one made in India about S.Ramanujan, my god it was bad, I don't remember the title, I did not finished the film , it was too bad , it did not resemble the real thing at all. but that one with Irons seems more credible
7.7 / 10 on IMDB scale.
here is the film : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787524/ < http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0787524/>
cheers and best regards,
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