"kisebb" pronunciation

[sumelic]

Hello, I had a question about pronunciation. Based on what I've seen online, it seems like people use the spelling "kisebb" but pronounce this word like "kissebb" ... why is this? I thought long or double consonant sounds in Hungarian were usually spelled with a double consonant letter.

 

[franknagy]

This is an example the case when the "word-analysing" spelling has won the "phonetic" spelling.

The "word-analysing" spelling works that way:
"kis-e-bb".

 

[sumelic]

Thank you franknagy. Is it a special case, or can you think of other words like this?

 

[AndrasBP]

why is this? I thought long or double consonant sounds in Hungarian were usually spelled with a double consonant letter.

Usually, yes, but not always: there are some other examples of intervocalic consonant lengthening, but in most cases such pronunciations are considered non-standard or dialectal:

szalag > pron. szallag (ribbon)
papír > pron. pappír (paper)
eső > esső (rain)
óvatosan > óvatossan (carefully)

Such lengthened pronunciations were sometimes fixed in the spelling of surnames:

dalos > Dallos (singer)
kolár (Slavic word meaning "wheelmaker") > Kollár

.

There's another example which is different because the lengthened consonant is not between vowels and where it is standard pronunciation:
"egy" (one) is pronounced "eggy"

 

[Encolpius]

papír > pron. pappír (paper)

I haven't ever heard pappír. I find it rather funny and would laugh hearing it.

 

[AndrasBP]

I haven't ever heard pappír. I find it rather funny and would laugh hearing it.

I don't know where you're from, but it's more common in western Hungary (Dunántúl).
I'm from Budapest, so it's funny for me, too. ("Van valami a hüttőben?" )

 

[francisgranada]

My two cents from the North-East of the Hungarian linguistic area:

szalag > pron. szallag (ribbon) - possible
papír > pron. pappír (paper) - never heard
eső > esső (rain) - never heard
óvatosan > óvatossan (carefully) - possible, but not typical
egy (one) is pronounced "eggy" - possible, but rather in case of "eggyet"

 

[Torontal]

being from the "center" :

szalag > pron. szallag (ribbon) - possible, but the pronounciation with double l is imo less frequent
papír > pron. pappír (paper) - never heard
eső > esső (rain) - never heard
óvatosan > óvatossan (carefully) - never heard
egy (one) is pronounced "eggy" - possible ( imo it is more common to pronounce it with double gy)

 

[AndrasBP]

I'm not saying that "pappír" and "esső" are very common today, but they do exist in dialects: googling "pappír" produced around 300 hits. They're mainly from texts written by people whose "uneducated" spelling reflect their own pronunciation.
Googling "esső" led me to works of Zsigmond Móricz and Géza Gárdonyi, where they used this spelling to reflect dialectal speech.