As we are Australians I would think the correct pronunciation would be with the 'a' as in hat, and the strsss on the first syllable.
The people who pronounce it saVILLE probably also shop at tar-GHEY.

i've always prononced it 'sar - ville' with a quick inflection on the 'r', not 'sav - ville' that sound a bit toffy nosed to me.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I guess it's going to be a case of which side of the world you're born on.
Ain't the English language grand?

ask a spaniard how to pronounce it - the city is in spain - or watch a bit of SBS when there's a spanish movie on to see how the locals pronounce it ??

It's sort of like spelling Brasil - that's the way the locals in sao paulo spell ut, but because of the americanisation of english we insist un spelling it Brazil. Go with the locals (spaniards or brasilians) and confuse the locals here :-)

But don't make the mistake of calling Majorca, south of Maryborough (Merra burra) anything but Ma-jorca. If you pronounce it the spanish way (Ma-yorka) you will be laughed out of town!
You could always tell the locals from the tourists in castlemaine, because the visitors always put an "arse" in the Castle, instead of an "ass" or an "ess" if you were really a yob.

Also like Launceston in Tasmania. The locals pronounce it Lon-ces-ton, some on the mainland call it Lawn-ces-ton. I spoke to a Brumi (someone from Birmingham UK) and he says they pronounce the city of the same name in the UK - Lonston. We supposedly claim to speak the same Queen's English. Go figure!

I used to live in Capalaba (Cap-al-a-ba) on the outskirts of Brisbane years ago and people regularly called it Cap-a-larb-a. I still occasionally hear it called that on the radio or TV.

In Vic we have a suburb called Vermont(both syllables have equal stress) and yet I often hear it called ver MONT on the radio.
Lalor is pronounced Lawler but it often gets Lay lor.

OK Pam - you solved that one for me. I have often wondered where was the Lawler they talk about on the radio.
My kids as littlies had one set of grandparents living in Macedon and the other in essendon. They pronounced them "Macendon" and "Essedon" respectively.

We have Derby pronounced as it is spelt. "Derby' as opposed to the English pronunciation "Darby" Even our Aussie Rules match between Eagles and Dockers is a "derby". The footy guys in Victoria have a really hard time with that one. LOL

Cheers, Jules

What's in a word? I say pronounce it as it should be not because someone said they think it may sound better some other way.
Potato or potarto etcetera, who cares?
How can one say Lonston or Lawnceston is correct when the English themselves have more local dialects than you can poke a stick at. (Oops, must not end a sentence in a preposition.) The English have invented so many ways to mis-pronounce something no wonder we don't know what we talk about.
Orstralian language.
Ockerisms are rooted in our English ancestry when we were a British Penal Colony (some English think we still are). It is NOT Australian at all, it is a mixture of English rhyme-back and English slang from all their different counties with a mixture of Scot, Irish and Indian thrown in.

We should invite Queen Bess to stay in the palace, George (Burning) Bush to stay in his and invite the Kiwis over to Australia for a BBBBQ (bloody big BBQ) cos in the NZ constitution there is a clause to allow NZ to become part of Australia. Com on NZ we all speak a very similar language we can easily understand, have another beer.

Doug.

The above is stricly in fun and not intended to be racial so do gooders back off.