Simple question - what is the precise pronunciation of the Farsi name Omar Khayyam?

[Ifor]

[craft1948]

http://degrees.education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/Omar+Khayyam

[mallam]

Whoops, as they say. The sound file link in your entry is dud, craft. And that and all the other dictionaries I have checked for the pronunciation are rubbish too. They give various approximations to American pronunciations of the name, and any sound files are totally Americanized.

For the "precise pronunciation" you would really need the IPA transcription. The html coding we used to have on this site appears to be lost for ever, so I can't give you that transcription in either a phonetic font or graphics, but I will do my best in the sort of rubbish transcription in the dicts I have looked at: óh-mahr kahy-yáhm, with the double y fully pronounced, as in the way a lot of Americans pronounce a word like 'valuable' (vayyabl).

[Peter Pedant]

This is the type of question where after about half an hour
you ask yourself why did I ask this ?

First you wanna ask why, considering you are speaking English
and not Farsi. Angela Rippon the seventies news reader used to get off on the correct pronounciation of towns but why say al gaheera, when you mean the English word Cairo or Hang Gong for Hong Kong

The link works for me
and also see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Khayy%C3%A1m

he writes in Farsi but he has an Arabic name, second name from the triliteral for tent maker
so you have do decide whether you want the Arabic or Farsi
Second name - letters are khe, ye, alif, meem

kh is like the scots loch, but doesnt exist in English
ye is a semi vowel , here like the y in you
alif straighforward English A - longish A bit not like the a in father
meem is an m

There is an accent on the a to show it is a long A (alif). this is not really standard arabic translit

The teshkila arent shown, which is the pointing for the short vowels, but that will show a short a between the kh and ye
It looks as tho there must be a 'shedda' above the ye, which is why it is doubled.
as a shedda is part of the teshkila which are missing I cant say

Are your eyelids drooping ?

[Peter Pedant]

Ok you have made it to the second part Omar

It is also a triliteral ain, meem, re

And the pointing would show a short a between the m and r

Now, the O in O is a consonant, called ain
andit can, as a consonant take a short a, i or u
Here is takes a u

I think the IPA for an ain is a little gamma (unless the y (gamma) is a glottal stop in which case it is something else). The nearest the Europeans get to an ain is a strangled sound

and once you have got that,
you have to add a u to it

Honestly, if you are speaking English I wouldnt bother

but you did ask.

[Peter Pedant]

ain isnt a glottal stop - that is a hamza

David Cowan - modern standard arabic - calls it a guttural glottal stop

see here ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_phonology

The ain is the reversed question mark and they say is a voiced fricative pharyngeal

They say the gamma is used for ghain, the letter is an ain with a dot on top (obligatory not teshkila) and is close to the French r in Paris (which is kinda spat and not trilled).

They make the point this is the Cairene dialect