A Swiss pronouncing gazetteer

This is the first Swiss pronouncing gazetteer treating all four national languages on an equal footing. It indicates the pronunciation ( i. e. accentuation and/or the full pronunciation ) of Swiss place-names ( populated places ). Pronunciations used by radio announcers and by local and/or regional speakers as well as information contained in special publications have been taken into account. The names have been extracted from dictionaries, encyclopaedias, gazetteers, maps and post directories. Variant and obsolete spellings have also been listed. In view of the non- existence of a well defined Swiss-German pronunciation of the written German language ( Schriftdeutsch ), German place-names are provided with syllable patterns and stress marks, full segmental phonetic transcription having been dispensed with; but there are some general introductory remarks on the orthoepy of German place- names in Switzerland. Full segmental phonetic transcription is offered for French, Italian and Romansch place-names. French is transcribed according to Warnat's pronouncing dictionary ( broad allophonic transcription, but with stress marks and without syllable boundaries ). Italian is transcribed in line with the RAI spelling and pronouncing dictionary ( Migliorini/Tagliavini/Fiorelli ), but with added allophonic length for stress vowels. Romansch transcription represents, to a certain extent, a tentative compromise between Planta/Schorta and Rumantsch Grischun. There are some 13.000 entries. The transcription used is IPA (API). Cantonal location is indicated for all place-names. The bibliography lists 43 titles.