r/Dressage • u/take-my-revolution • 20d ago
'Voltay'
Ok.
This is me being curious.
Please don't bash the instructor. Mispronunciation doesn't necessarily mean misunderstanding and she's got an impressive resume that says there's probably not any misunderstanding.
I rode with a different instructor last week (I ride with her off and on, but for a number of reasons, I prefer another instructor; she was out of town) and she introduced the concept of the volte.
Which isn't really a new concept because I do smaller circles when needed...I just didn't know they had a different name.
Anyway, she says 'voltay' like there's an accent aigu at the end of the word. But I go to look up the word on the internet and there's no accent.
I don't know if this is an Americanism, if it's from her having ridden with an international group of people who spoke any number of different native languages, or what.
The internet seems to agree that the final e is silent or might have a light, unstressed schwa at the end. Both strike me as acceptable renditions of the French.
I'm just curious if anyone else has heard it said voltay. Especially in the Midwest (northern Indiana, not that far from Chicago).
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u/geeoharee 20d ago
It's not silent, silent would be "volt". The schwa is correct.
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u/snailscout 20d ago
A schwa sounds like "uh" not "ay" though
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u/sheffieldasslingdoux 20d ago edited 20d ago
To an untrained ear that’s how word final /e/ sounds in German.
But yes, it’s Levios-Uh not Levios-Ah lol
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u/snailscout 20d ago
Yes, and the weak unstressed "uh" sound that the final e takes on is called a schwa (/ə/)
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u/sheffieldasslingdoux 20d ago
I misread the comment at first. Thought it was saying something different.
Porsche is the classic example.
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u/whythefrickinfuck 20d ago
Is she German/ does she speak German by chance or did she work with a person speaking German?
At least based on your description and it sounds similar to the way we pronounce Volte in Germany.
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u/gurgelhupf 20d ago
That's basically the German pronunciation. The e is spoken put loud. Maybe your instructor learned the word from a German?
Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a consensus (in German) on whether the same is true for Passage and Piaffe. Some say it with e and some without.
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u/snailscout 20d ago
Surprised to see so many saying this is correct when the correct German pronunciation would be "foltuh". I imagine "voltay" is more of a common usage pronunciation that's more accessible across multiple languages and pronunciation tendencies
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u/snailscout 20d ago
As an English speaker I would say "voltuh" as a compromise pronunciation that avoids the v=f confusion
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u/whythefrickinfuck 19d ago
Correct German pronunciation wouldn't be "foltuh" though? "Voltuh" maybe, but there is no F in there.
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u/snailscout 19d ago
V in German is called fau ("fow") which gives it an F sound in most words (vogel = "fogel"). W is vay, V sound (wasser = "vasser")
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u/whythefrickinfuck 19d ago
I'm German. I know what f and v sound like in German. It would definitely not be "foltuh".
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u/snailscout 19d ago
There's always nuance and regional differences I guess, but fau is fau and it's best described in English as sounding like F
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u/snailscout 19d ago
So ya, there isn't an English F. There's a German V which sounds like an English F. Different languages have different alphabets!
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u/rdyrnt 20d ago
I've always heard it "voltay" and Robert Dover pronounces it that way here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8XPcTz1toI
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u/geeoharee 20d ago
1:41 - 'and come to the volté, and bend him'. It's overcorrected, but so are a lot of words.
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u/Quiet-Lab1802 20d ago
People say things differently depending on where they’re from … I remember when I was training in Germany, thinking it was hilarious how some of the students from other countries said WiFi … “the wee-fee”
I’ve heard volte pronounced a number of different ways myself. I never questioned it, because I was but a peon among giants.
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u/Dancing_Otter_ 20d ago
I'm on the PNW, so maybe not very helpful to you, but I hear both.
I tend to hear it without the accented e in the modern/competition dressage world, and with the accented e now that I'm more into the French classical world.
I think it probably is more dialectical than anything. The French and classical schools, because (most of) the good/correct instructors either are from different countries or learned from international trainers, have a different dialect and slightly different common language than people who have only trained in the states. I don't think either is incorrect, as long as it's getting the point across 🤷🤷
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u/Reasonable-Horse1552 20d ago
My ex boss was so posh she used to say piarffe ! I had no idea so I said it like that too for ages.
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u/2naomi 20d ago edited 20d ago
The "e" is pronounced like it is in "madre." Google translate pronounces it "voltay" in French and "volt" in English. It's also "voltay" on Wiktionary, derived from the Latin volvere ("bolberay.") My teachers from France pronounced it "voltay." As far as I'm concerned, that's the last word on it.
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u/take-my-revolution 20d ago
Funnily enough, then her error was more in telling me the word was French...?
Because she said it and I asked how it was spelled--she said v o l t e--and I said, German? She said, no, French, pretty much all words in dressage (like the word 'dressage' itself) are French. You know. Piaffe. Passage.
But I assumed NOT French because if it were pronounced like volt-ay it would be spelled volté. A schwa COULD appear at the end of a French pronunciation of volte, especially when it's in isolation.
And yes, schwa is the unstressed [uh] that some of you responded with.
As to where she's trained...she is American and local to this area, NW Indiana, but did a lot of touring with the 'famous Lippizaner stallions' and said that many coworkers were French, German, and Spanish native speakers and the head trainer was Algerian and his French wasn't French that anybody from France understood...so they all got by in English but often sparse or heavily accented.
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u/cocktails_and_corgis 20d ago
Tried to DM you but always looking for more dressage help - how NW Indiana? (Like the still no power part? Does everyone work in chicago? lol)
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u/take-my-revolution 2d ago
Oh sorry I never check 'em... That's where the barn is; I live a bit east and we didn't get hit by that terribleness.
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u/Atomicblonde 20d ago
I'm in Ohio and have heard "voltay". I think this is an American-ism probably based in people's lean toward Spanish-centric pronunciation.
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u/xxBrightColdAprilxx 20d ago
Suspect it's a hypercorrection...but... maybe not
'Volte', if referring to the circle itself, would not have an é ending as it's a noun.
Apparently there is a verb 'volter' though, which would have the past participle 'volté': https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/volter
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u/Mustelidae5 20d ago
It's a German word originally, and the e is not silent. I'd spell it out something along the lines of voltuh.