Pronounce Kamala

[HelenWheels]

apparently it is like Comma, as in a sentence and La

however we pronounce comma differently in UK
i guess it should be pronounced as they do in America rather than we would in UK?

It is K (just the syllable, no aa sound like calm), m (no aa sound), la (aa sound).

No. Not at all. I have a Northern accent (from Lancashire) but accents differ from Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn etc. It's the same across the UK.

Would it be more helpful if we put RP in there to avoid any doubt and then people can then extrapolate from there?

It's an Indian name meaning 'lotus' and even Kamala herself is mispronouncing it..🙄

The correct pronunciation is Cuh with the short cuh as in cult
ma as in money
long La as in La La Land. Any other pronunciation and it means nothing.

I have explained this terribly but her Tamil mum must be rolling in her grave at the mangling.

Come-ah-La(with not much stress ion the ah) is how you would pronounce it, definitely not like Pamela with a C or Com-ela or Karmela.

come makes more sense to me than comma

Here it is straight from Kamala’s own mouth when she was sworn in as vice president. It sounds like Pamela with a K when she says her own name.

Dear heavens, no. I am indian born and bred and the pronunciation she is after is Kaw-mow-lah, said swiftly obviously.

Only because of the way you pronounce those words.

As a rhotic speaker it makes perfect sense to me.

Doesn't work with my British accent.

I did get my latest mn name from this topic though.

Quite. She is pronouncing the word in Bengali for some reason. So in Bangla it is “Kaw-mow-lah”, which said swiftly is what she is after. Why I do not know - unlike me, she isn't Bengali!

The Tamil/hindi pronunciation would be as you say.

Yes she is! So weird. However i guess she can pronounce it any way she likes!
Haven't seen her speech yet. I gather it was good.

This is how the original Indian name is pronounced. Children themselves then change it or just go with the flow when wrongly said as they are fed up of correcting people, so the name becomes more anglicised. Half the Indian names here are incorrectly pronounced. I guess in the end you just go with the way the person themselves say their name.

even there when she is introduced her name is pronounced differently than how she pronounces it

And now later in the thread they've switched to calling it the British way 🤣 which still does not = just England.

ok oh @DinnaeFashYersel

cant please everybody

It’s her name to pronounce any way she likes and she says it loud and clear in that clip. The person who introduced her mispronounced it and that comes across loud and clear when Kamala repeats her vows after her.

Hopefully in November you can just say "president-elect' and in January 'the President'.

It's not.

The easiest way for me to remember is by what her stepchildren call her- Mamala.

Mom-ma-la@

So MN have turned up to tell her how to pronounce her own name? Surely she must know, or is whitesplaining taking place? If she was called Emily or Jane other arguments would have commenced. Give the lady a break.

Obama had the same shite.

@beryldaperil
not all MN
just one or two

I mean, some of us are Indian as her name is as common an Indian name as Jane. So no whitesplaining!

The way she says it is KAH-ma-la. In American English the short o is pronounced ah, there's no distinction like there is in British English. The lowercase a should be a schwa but I can't type that easily! In the US, Pamela would be pronounced with a like in cat, not a like in father.

(British living in USA)

(I'm not discussing how it should be said in Tamil, I'm only referring to how she pronounces her own name)

….. because if you’re ‘American’ (obviously a massive range of accents in the US), Kama and Comma sound the same. That’s what everyone is saying.

Lots of people seem to say Kamala to rhyme with Impala 🙃 ka-MAH-la.

It’s her name. The way she pronounces it is correct for her name. As in the clips.

That's definitely wrong.