Pronunciation that makes you cringe

[hellymedic]

There was a BBC4 programme on the other day about Neanderthals. There were loads of academics and scientists in the programme and they all said "Neandertal" ie no "TH" sound and which how I've always heard it said, but the presenter kept on saying it as NeanderTHal!

I had a teacher who pronounced this as Nee-an- DER- thul man.

It was only some years later my Mum (whose first language was German) used authentic German pronunciation.

[T42]

Wondering where the H came from anyway, in a language with supposedly no unvoiced letters, I looked it up.  The valley is called the Neandertal in German these days, but (laut Wiki.de) in the 19th century it was the Neanderthal, which is when English would have assimilated it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The word Tal is also the origin of the word dollar.

[Jakob W]

19th-c. German seems to have had more unvoiced Hs, e.g. _Die Forelle_ has »Ein Fischer mit der Ruthe wohl an dem Ufer stand«, whereas the modern spelling would be 'Rute'.

[Auntie Helen]

And of course Martin Luther is ‘Luter’ here. They all look at me strangely if I say ‘Luther’ with the soft th

[hellymedic]

My mother was named Ruth by her German parents.
She's used the soft 'th' since she arrived here in 1956 when in GB but not when in FOREIGN climes.

[T42]

Come to that, why does English turn the letter U into a diphthong in so many words?

[hellymedic]

Dunno; ask the Russians!

[Andrij]

Dunno; ask the Russians!

 

[ian]

Is it only British people who amuse themselves by trying to pronounce foreign words authentically (which generally failing, unless they're posh, in which case they do it on purpose in the hope of making the rest of us seem foolish)?

Certainly, the French and Italians don't seem to bother. I think we should follow their lead. Chorizo in my house is chor-eez-o and it's fucking staying that way.

[citoyen]

My mother was named Ruth by her German parents.
She's used the soft 'th' since she arrived here in 1956 when in GB but not when in FOREIGN climes.

My friend’s German partner is called Judith, which he pronounces in a very English way. I haven’t asked her how she feels about it.

[hellymedic]

Being in a Jewish primary school, we often usedHebrew names. My classmate Yudit was never known as Judith...

[T42]

Is it only British people who amuse themselves by trying to pronounce foreign words authentically (which generally failing, unless they're posh, in which case they do it on purpose in the hope of making the rest of us seem foolish)?

Certainly, the French and Italians don't seem to bother. I think we should follow their lead. Chorizo in my house is chor-eez-o and it's fucking staying that way.

I would have expected chor-aye-zo, but never mind.

I have a Scots-Polish chum who was born in France and first went to Poland in his mid-twenties.  Before he went, Warsaw was Warsaw to both of us. After he came back I mentioned Warsaw and he bellowed "Varshava!" at me.  But then, he's been a Tory all his life.

[Pickled Onion]

It's an odd thing - at what point do we cross over from the Anglicised pronunciation to the local one? Anyone who pronounces Paris as parEE is either French or being facetious. There's a BBC correspondent covering the missing Himalayan climbers who pronounces it Him-AH-laya. We have no problem putting the right stress on Málaga, but not on Córdoba. As for Sevilla, it seems the place is Seville but the kickball team is Sevilla (pronounced mostly as severe).

[T42]

Curious.  When I'm speaking English I pronounce the S in Paris but pronounce Marseille as the French do. Mar-sails sounds daft/ignorant.

Re the BBC bloke, an Indian chap I used to know years ago pronounced it Him-al-AH-ya. I used that pronunciation exactly once and my geography master bit my head off.

[Salvatore]

And then there's AC Milan, an Italian football club which for historical reasons uses the English name of the city. Do you use the English pronunciation of the English name, or the Italian "Meeelan" (as the locals do)?

[ian]

This pronunciation thing does seem to be a class signifier. Upper class uberposhos will deliberately mispronounce, middlers and aspirationals will bump for what they believe is authenticity and a make a big fuss of doing so and reminding others that they're doing it wrong. Those the at the bottom don't care, they're on their fifteenth pint of San Miguel in Ma-lager.

If we're speaking English then, as far I care, we should use the anglicized pronunciation rather than mangling foreign pronunciation with comedy lisps and the like. Quite often it just sounds affected. That said, I was in a shop the other day and someone was asking for jalapeños with a j. Honestly, I was almost ready to correct him my best mildly racist comedy Speedy Gonzales accent.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is it only British people who amuse themselves by trying to pronounce foreign words authentically (which generally failing, unless they're posh, in which case they do it on purpose in the hope of making the rest of us seem foolish)?

Certainly, the French and Italians don't seem to bother. I think we should follow their lead. Chorizo in my house is chor-eez-o and it's fucking staying that way.

I would have expected chor-aye-zo, but never mind.

I have a Scots-Polish chum who was born in France and first went to Poland in his mid-twenties.  Before he went, Warsaw was Warsaw to both of us. After he came back I mentioned Warsaw and he bellowed "Varshava!" at me.  But then, he's been a Tory all his life.

I've tried pronouncing London the English way in Polish sentences. It's virtually impossible. Polish has fairly rigid stress patterns and initial stress just doesn't work, it unbalances the whole sentence. Saying "Varshava" in an English sentence is easy but as it's an important enough place to have a standardised English name, it's silly not to use that in English. But there is a mid-ground of names which are reasonably familiar to English ears but not so much as to have a standard English version, and often the Polish pronunciation is sufficiently different as to be a different word. Lodz/Łódż is a case in point. I remember one Polish friend used to compromise on "Worsoff" for Warsaw in English, which sounds like a Pole mangling an English name.

[T42]

Then there's paella.  Even after I'd heard Spaniards say it I couldn't quite believe it shouldn't end in ella.

[citoyen]

As for Sevilla, it seems the place is Seville but the kickball team is Sevilla (pronounced mostly as severe).

And then there's AC Milan, an Italian football club which for historical reasons uses the English name of the city. Do you use the English pronunciation of the English name, or the Italian "Meeelan" (as the locals do)?

Football club names are an odd case. Napoli play in Naples. Fiorentina play in Florence. Slavia Prague play in Praha. Steaua Bucharest play in Bucuresti.

And Bayern Munich play in München, which is in Bavaria.

[citoyen]

If we're speaking English then, as far I care, we should use the anglicized pronunciation rather than mangling foreign pronunciation with comedy lisps and the like. Quite often it just sounds affected.

What really grates is people affecting the Castilian lisp for chorizo but starting it with a hard English 'tch'

[Cudzoziemiec]

As for Sevilla, it seems the place is Seville but the kickball team is Sevilla (pronounced mostly as severe).

And then there's AC Milan, an Italian football club which for historical reasons uses the English name of the city. Do you use the English pronunciation of the English name, or the Italian "Meeelan" (as the locals do)?

Football club names are an odd case. Napoli play in Naples. Fiorentina play in Florence. Slavia Prague play in Praha. Steaua Bucharest play in Bucuresti.

And Bayern Munich play in München, which is in Bavaria.

If you're trying to be totally authentic, there's the added problem of clubs with numbers in their names. And the initials. "eff see schalke oh four" or "eff tsay schalke zero vier"? Or something else? (The answer of course is not to talk about German football!)

[The French Tandem]

Is it only British people who amuse themselves by trying to pronounce foreign words authentically (which generally failing, unless they're posh, in which case they do it on purpose in the hope of making the rest of us seem foolish)?

Certainly, the French and Italians don't seem to bother. I think we should follow their lead. Chorizo in my house is chor-eez-o and it's fucking staying that way.

I would have expected chor-aye-zo, but never mind.

I have a Scots-Polish chum who was born in France and first went to Poland in his mid-twenties.  Before he went, Warsaw was Warsaw to both of us. After he came back I mentioned Warsaw and he bellowed "Varshava!" at me.  But then, he's been a Tory all his life.

It's not that the French just don't bother. They actually take great pride in completely distorting foreign names. London becomes "Londres", and Warsaw becomes "Varsovie".

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd say "Varsovie" is actually closer to the Polish than "Warsaw" is.

[Guy]

For us ( ) pignorant John Bulls "Warsaw" is a lot easier to say.