To native English speakers: "RA"

Hi everyone,

My question is for native English speakers only. I'm at university in France - Master's degree - and my dissertation deals with phonology. I know my question will sound weird to you but for some reason I need to know how a native English speaker would pronounce "RA" out of the blue. I know it doesn't exist but it doesn't matter. And that's not a acronym so don't read it letter by letter, just assume it's a normal word. Would you spontaneously pronouce it [rei] as in "rake" or [ra:] as in "bra" ?

Thanks a lot !
Jeremy

It would be pronounced as /rA/ (the vowel could be either [A], [Q], [a], or [O] depending on speaker and dialect.) I would imagine than only 1 in 100 people would pronounce it as /reI/. Some might spell it out, thinking it's an acronym.

It does exist as the name of an Egyptian god and of the boat the Thor Heyadahl named after it. As such it's pronounced [r\A:] or thereabouts

Thanks for your answers.

Actually I did know it was the name of this god and of that boat (the OED also says it's a "terminal moraine near the Coast of in southern Norway and Sweeden). But in fact what I need to know is how a native speaker would pronounce it WITHOUT being influenced by the pronunciation of words which do exist but which are originally foreign words.
Actually, the "ra" I'm interested in is the lexical trunncation of a word; I can't tell you which without influencing the potential pronunciation of "ra" because what I'm interested in is precisely the pronunciation of this segment as is without know what word it comes from.

Any other answers ? I need to know if almost any native speaker would pronounce it the same way.

Thanks !

I don't think that it really makes sense to ask how a native speaker would say it without being influenced by other words; the only way anyone would decide how to pronounce it would be either from being told how to pronounce it or by extrapolating from other words. It would probably be pronounced with the vowel sound in "bra", or possibly that of "rat", especially if it were "ra-ra". It would be rare for it to be pronounced with the vowel of "rake" unless there were some other vowel after it; in English, the last vowel in a word is almost always either short or silent. So, for instance "rata" might be pronounced as "raeta" by people not familiar with Latin, but not as "raetae". For it to be pronounced with a long a, there would have to be a silent vowel, such as ray, rae, or rai (although that last one might be pronounce "rye").

Short vowel. May sound like "raw" or someone may think R and A.

We used to have a Jeremy here who used to work in a petrol/gas station, I think.

Out of the blue, I would pronounce it as [ˈɹɑ:]. Stressed, word-final "a" isn't a very common feature in English orthography, but when it does occur - as in "ma", "pa", "spa", "Ra", "fa", "la" - it's typically pronounced [ɑ:].

Ra like the god, not like raw for me.

>> Ra like the god, not like raw for me <<

How can you say that? They're pronounced exactly the same.

<<How can you say that? They're pronounced exactly the same.>>

If you're one of those North Americans (about half) who has the low-back merger, then those words are pronounced the same; for all other English speakers, they're pronounced differently.

Yes, yes, I know about that. But wouldn't RA be pronounced like raw?

I would say rah (rhymes with bra), which is not quite like my raw.

How could that be? Aren't you from the West, ergo cot-caught merged?

I am not cot-caught merged. Ra = cot, raw = caught.

I'm cot-caught merged, but Ra and raw are still different for me. That's a bit odd, isn't it?

I suppose words (especially proper nouns like an Egyptian god) used in the scientific community can sometimes be learned differently than the rest of one's vocabulary because we don't necessarily hear the word outside of scientific enunciation. One doesn't generally discuss Ra at a bar or restaurant, but someone is bound to complain that their steak is raw.

I think there are quite a few words that are like that.

"Measurement" and the infinitive "to measure" are a great example. In my neck of the woods, if you learned to say the word from a teacher in the grade school science lab, you'd probably say "mehzhoor" but an older guy that has put up drywall his entire life is just as likely to pronounce it "mayzhoor".

And I've been given grief on numerous occaisions for pronouncing garage like I heard on television, "garazhe," as opposed to what my parents say: "garadge."

Just another aspect to one's dialect, I suppose.