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Re: Pronunciations
Gregory wrote:
When someone says (SNIP) "I'm going to Meh-hee-co to search for
Allende" don't we usually regard it as affectation rather than
linguistic accuracy?
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Here is a very interesting example of the mixture of "English
pronunciation" and utilizing the pronunciation of another language. I
would GENERALLY consider it "accurate" and NOT an afectation WHEN the
word comes EXCLUSEVELY from the other language and has no "established"
"English pronunciation" - Los Angeles has been pronounced with the
English "hard g" - Mexico has been pronounced with an "English X" for
over a hundred years by English speakers - HOWEVER, Allende is a word
reletively VERY NEW to English speakers, and should, in my opinion, be
pronounced as acurately (as in Spanish) as reasonably possible (NOT all
sounds in another language occure in English - so there is sometimes an
immediate, and nearly inevitable "English pronunciation."
So, it is ENTIRELY appropriate to go to Mexico (as in "Tex-Mex")
but one would go to Allende, pronounced:
I - (as in "it is I")
Yen (as in "The basic monetary unit of Japan is the yen" - double Ls
are pronounced as Ys)
day (as in "Day or night")
Anyway, that is a "rule of thumb" (established pronunciation vs newly
introduced word) I consider when pronouncing other language words.
Best wishes, Michael
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