Timothy Appleby wrote:

Hi all. I just want to find out if anyone else had experienced that the word “Family” is being mispronounced with some speech engines, it would be helpful
if someone could chime in here.

Okay, I'll chime... No, I have not observed that.
But asking a large-scoped yes or know question, when you really want to find out if anyone is having the same problem, is not likely to get you the answers you want. Provide more information and you might get somewhere.

It would be helpful to indicate which speech engines have given you issues with this word, and in which way they mispronounced it.
In what context (MS Word, web browsers, everywhere) has this happened?

Luke

I have not experienced this and agree with Luke on the need for additional specific information.

That being said, if it is a synth/speech engine issue, then it's not NVAccess that would be remedying that, and you could work around it via the speech dictionaries (probably the voice dictionary, if it's for a specific voice).
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2, Build 19042  

Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them.  And then you destroy yourself.

       ~ Richard M. Nixon

 

If you are meaning that Family is being pronounced as though it is spelled famly instead then yes.  I believe it is because most of american culture has started pronouncing it this way so they changed the pronunciation dictionaries so it says it this way.  Our language is becoming corrupted and it drives me crazy.  I have to keep a very careful watch onmyown speech so I can delay my sliding into this situation myself.  You can probably make a correction in the pronunciation dictionary to make it speak correctly if you want.

Dan Beaver

Hi all. I just want to find out if anyone else had experienced that the word “Family” is being mispronounced with some speech engines, it would be helpful if someone could chime in here.

 

Thanks in advance;

 

Tim Appleby.

-- 
Dan Beaver (KA4DAN)

I do not know if other English speaking countries routinely say, Fam ill ee, but based on the amount of British TV I watch, it's not common there.

The 'i' in family has been elided out for longer than I've been alive, and that elision really can't be called "incorrect."

And I have plenty of pet peeves on pronunciation and usages, too, but in the end the only way a language is correctly described is "as it is spoken or written," and the two are not necessarily the same.  All languages evolve over time.  There are people who rail at the use of "enormity" for "enormousness" and "gay" for "homosexual."  Those ships, and many others, have sailed the moment that most speakers of a language community understand exactly what's meant when a non-preferred usage occurs.

I'm almost sixty years old, and the only time I've encountered the I in family voiced is in poetry or song, and not often then.
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2, Build 19042  

Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them.  And then you destroy yourself.

       ~ Richard M. Nixon

 

Somehow, I doubt this is the place for the prescriptivists and descriptivists to go to war. 🤷‍♂️

On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 06:01 PM, Chris Smart wrote:

Somehow, I doubt this is the place for the prescriptivists and descriptivists to go to war.

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About which I agree entirely.  But I do think it's important to note that synths are going to go "descriptivist" in their pronunciations since common pronunciation is the ne plus ultra of what communicates what's intended.  That was really my central, and only, point.

We'd find it very strange were every English synth to speak The Queen's English, but with a regional/national accent.  I'd imagine the same applies no matter what the language.  Synths are trying to emulate common pronunciation as much as possible.

But, I'll come back to what I said at the outset:  NVAccess is not responsible for what synths do, nor do they change what synths do.  If you have a real issue complain to your synth's maker.
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Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 20H2, Build 19042  

Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them.  And then you destroy yourself.

       ~ Richard M. Nixon