h1n̥gʷnis
This is a proto-indo-european fire god, transliterated into english. Does anyone know how you even pronounce this?
It's a phonetic transcription, not a transliteration, so it shows discreetly how that word is pronounced. I'll break it down as best I can, but take everything with a grain of salt, as
@Analytical Engine said, this is a reconstructed language. There's as much accuracy here as there is with evolutionary trees, so, potentially very accurate, but still not guaranteed.
- h1 is a laryngeal, so it's very much up for debate, but either an <h> as in English hat, or a /ʔ/ that is in-between the syllables of English uh-oh (there definitely is a sound there, it's just somewhat hard to hear for most people). There is some suggestion as well that the laryngeals had vocalic forms, that is, they could be vowels in some environments too. For h1, its a schwa, the /ə/ when you say the <a> in words like comma or about in rapid speech, without enunciating them fully
- n̥ is the same as English <n> but has that little circle below it so it's de-voiced, without being overly specific that just means that it's pronounced without vibrating your vocal cords, which is really hard to do if your first language doesn't do that (most don't)
- gʷ is the same as English <g> but is labialised, hence the superscript /w/, so a /g/ with the lips rounded when you pronounce it
- the last three are the same as they would be in English, the /i/ is pronounced the was the double-e in geese, or the y in happy is pronounced.
When it comes to which syllable to stress, don't worry about it. Suprasegmentals like stress are actually impossible to reconstruct, comparative linguists would need something in writing (usually poetry) for that, which they can never have because PIE was only a spoken language.
So that puts it at "hnhg(w)-nees", or "ənhɡ(w)-nees"
