I would say "Mar-ree" rather in the way that Holly has indicated above. The Scottish Gaelic name Mhàiri should, if applied correctly, be pronounced with a 'v' sound for the 'Mh' at the beginning. On the subject of pronunciation, I always thought my surname was a very basic one, being of a single syllable, yet I have had a number of people pronounce it as 'Lockey.' My response is to ask how these people would pronounce the name Clarke. My favourite came in a hotel in Slovenia when we were on holiday there. The person at reception addressed me as "Mr Lotchka," which I rather liked. It was perfectly logical - in Slavic languages, 'c' is soft. On my Russian visa, my name was translated into Cyrillic as Lok, which is also entirely logical.
Lockey, eh? I find this whole subject very interesting. And it's not a simple matter of mispronunciation a lot of times, but rather of dialect. So, @Tom Locke , in Scottish Gaelic, my name would be more like "vah ree" if pronounced the same as "Mhàiri?"
That's right - the Irish name Niamh is pronounced "Neev." I remember one day having to phone someone with that name who worked for the old Irish phone company Eircell (I worked in IT support and they were a client) and she was really happy when I pronounced her name right. She told me that almost everyone pronounced it wrong.
In Hungarian the C is followed by a "s", CS is the ch sound, SZ is the s sound. They are in the alphabet that way. Nobody ever gets my last name right. Since it begins with the CS and also has the SZ in it. Plus they always accent the wrong syllable. My DIL comes close enough but even she doesn't say it the right way.
Of course, most languages make use of accents to aid pronunciation. English doesn't, which is one reason it's a difficult language to learn. The Cyrillic alphabet uses different letters for different sounds. Hungarian is a strange language because it's not related to those of its neighbours. Curiously, it's related to Finnish, which appears bewildering to most people outside of Finland and Estonia. Something else that I find interesting is that people tend to lump the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania together, but their languages and indeed cultures are very different.
Yes, it's strange that Hungarian isn't related to any Slavic languages. I've heard it's related to Finnish but I never really looked at the Finnish language to see. My sister recently had a cheek swab done for fun to see where we came from. Highest percentage was Eastern Europe and about 40% Scandanavian, also had 4% Asian. Although my DNA would be slightly different than my sisters since we're not identical twins, I'm sure it's close.
The Finns and Estonians simply can't get enough vowels. Scrabble sets in those countries must have extra tiles to accommodate all the vowels. Even words that are very obvious to English speakers seem to find room for another vowel, so if you're going out for a drink, you need to find a 'baar.'
Seems like it should be, @Karen McKenzie , but it's not. Even that "Sari" that you typed is said like "sorry" and "sayer-ee" depending where one is from. "Mar like bar" and eeee is how I prefer it, but just as many people say it like marry... which is fine, too, but I have a real problem with "Mary" and a less but still existing problem with "Marie." Then again, some places say "marry" the same as "Mary" so those people will have no idea what I'm talking about. Oh, and MY "Harry" doesn't sound like hairy and my "Larry" doesn't sound like "layer-ee" and my "Gary" doesn't sound like "Geary" but it does from a lot of regional dialects.
Well, I get your point..there's no way to control those factors..but personally, it's not complicated to me. I had a friend named "Mauna" in junior high..people called her "Mona" "Ma-ew-na", "Muna"... Even with my own name...which I think is easy--.same thing.."Kirin", "Kayren" or they make it one syllable like "Ken". I don't mind...I've heard it all by now. I think we don't realize we even have an accent sometimes...I didn't think Californians did ...til I went to Texas and was told I talk just like a Californian..haha
Yes... it's fascinating. My best friend growing up was Karen and I heard a lot more "Kern" than I thought possible. Wonder what names couldn't possibly be said differently? Joe? Bob? Sue?
My sister is Eva and she's gets Ava or long E. In reality my mom named her the Hungarian Eva which isn't pronounced either way but kind of like the E in Evan but not exactly. A sound that I can't duplicate in any English word. Think she goes by Ava though.
I've always had to spell my name (my real name)...because people will insist on putting an (e) on the end of it rather than an A (for anyone who doesn't already know my real name is not Holly).