On Oct 3, 2004, at 3:12 AM, dhbailey wrote:
One final thought concerning the music being sung by non-Armenians: Should you include a pronunciation guide?
I got the impression that the intended singers of this piece would be familiar with Armenian.
If I'm editor of a project which is in a language the singers are likely to be unfamliar with, I like to include a short guide to pronunciation, almost always with the caveat that it's only a guideline and not intended as a substitute for coaching with a native speaker and/or diction expert. If I'm just hired to engrave a piece for someone else, I'm pretty much going to provide whatever he asks for and pays me for. It's hardly the engraver's task to write a pronunciation guide, especially for a language he doesn't already know.
With Armenian, I imagine the appendix would be more about the transliteration system. Armenian has its own alphabet, and I'm not sure how standardized is the scheme for transliterating it into the Roman alphabet. Also, I think Armenian has mild differences in pronunciation among dialects, so if you were to get too phonetic with your guidelines, you'd be making an editorial choice with regard to dialects. Also, like most languages preserved in old liturgy, the liturgical language is different from the modern written language.
All of this suggests to me that unless you really know what you're doing, or you're consulting with someone else who does, it's probably better to stay out of any pronunciation discussion.
mdl
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