2024-01-20 02:33:03
When you’re lucky enough to have Kylian Mbappé in front of you, you probably want to ask him a whole bunch of questions. The most delicate ones, like “how much do you earn per month?” “, or “so, this transfer to Real Madrid? “, to the simplest ones like: “but by the way, how do we pronounce your name, exactly? »
Elise Lucet, the France Télévisions journalist, had the opportunity to ask all these questions during the exceptional episode of Envoyé Spécial, dedicated Thursday evening to the French football star. Among the myriad of subjects discussed, that of the correct pronunciation of one’s surname, therefore: it is necessary to say “Mbappé”, with the “M” and the “b” pronounced in the same movement of the lips, and not “ème- bapped”.
“Because there’s no apostrophe!” », he specifies, between the M and the B. Even if, in certain cases like that of N’Golo Kanté, the apostrophe is not necessarily synonymous with distinct pronunciation of the two letters – the first name of the player ‘Al-Ittihad is pronounced “ngolo”.
In French, these double consonants like “Mb”, “Nd” (in “Ndiaye”), “Nk”, even “Ndj”, and their pronunciation, are called prenasalized. A phonetic phenomenon which modifies the pronunciation of a consonant by preceding it with another, spoken in a “nasal” manner. It is therefore necessary, technically, to slightly pronounce the “M” before the “b” in “Mbappé”. We find this phenomenon in many names of African origin, but not only that.
“I would have a lot of work if I had to correct everyone,” Mbappé laughed. He is not the only footballer whose name is tarnished: ask Antoine “Gri-è-zmann”, who is often pronounced “Grizman”, or Randal “Kolo Müani”, systematically said “Kolo Mouani”. Concerning Mbappé, there will be, at least, a few additional people who no longer need to be corrected: those who watched the show this Thursday evening.
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