Some Australian place names are difficult to comprehend their pronunciation

The name Cockburn reminds me of an advertisement for Cockburn's port. The scene is that a Royal Navy captain is sharing a port with a Russian captain...

Russian.. You call this port Cock Burn
R.N. It's pronounced Coburn
Russian .. So, I come from Mos cock
R.N. Yes, I imagine you do

UK names can be difficult too, often because they are derived from other languages. The name of the village where I live is derived from Scots Gaelic, but it's easy to pronounce. Other names are nigh impossible to pronounce unless you come from Scotland or N.Ireland. Take for example the ancestral home of Lord Byron, Gight castle, or the small town of Ahoghill .
 
Capt Lightning said:
The name Cockburn reminds me of an advertisement for Cockburn's port. The scene is that a Royal Navy captain is sharing a port with a Russian captain...

Russian.. You call this port Cock Burn
R.N. It's pronounced Coburn
Russian .. So, I come from Mos cock
R.N. Yes, I imagine you do

UK names can be difficult too, often because they are derived from other languages. The name of the village where I live is derived from Scots Gaelic, but it's easy to pronounce. Other names are nigh impossible to pronounce unless you come from Scotland or N.Ireland. Take for example the ancestral home of Lord Byron, Gight castle, or the small town of Ahoghill .
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Here in The New Forest Beaulieu causes all sorts tongue twisting. It should be pronounced Bewley but it rarely is.
 
Bretrick said:
Muchea is pronounced Moo - shay
Mandjoogoordap - Man - jew - gooer - dap
Toodyay - Too - jay
Nowangerup - No - an - ger - up
Cockburn - Coh - burn
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Manjoogoordap and Nowangerup are pronounced fairly phonetically as they look - which isn't surprising for names which are Aboriginal words, since they had no written language and so Europeans would of put their english phonetics into writing down the word.
 
Does it really matter. Haha. They know where you want to land the helicopter by the first syllable.
Aussy land isn't on my Bucket list but I would have liked growing up in it I think.
 
Mike said:
Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, Scotland, is pronounced,
Elshinford, no I don't know why either.

Mike.
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that's very interesting..because where I used to live in Scotland there was road named Athelstane road ...and everyone pronounced it Athelstane.. clearly nobody knew it should have been pronounced differently
 
Incidentally, Athelstaneford is the birthplace of the Saltire, the Scottish
flag, blue background with a white cross from opposite corners, it is
also the place where the access road to it, maybe 60 or more years ago
was classed as a "C", road, I never ever saw another C road and I don't
know why, it looked like any other road.

Mike.
 

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