Re: Rhys Ifans! Welsh fans, another pronunciation pop question

On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:42:09 -0800, Kris Kowal <cowbertvonmoo@...> wrote:

> Here, in college, my roommates chuckle when I attempt to
> pronounce Spanish (California is filled to the brim with Spanish names
> for cities, streets, and geographical landmarks, but our
> pronunciations are all Americanized).
How _do_ they pronounce the Spanish names?

Here up in Monterey county, we do a mix of a close approximation of
Spanish with some English pronunciation thrown in. Take for instance
"Salinas" (named after the vernal pools that ran between the city of
Chualar and the coast at the mouth of the valley). Here we say
/s@linIs/. Properly it's /salinas/ of course. Either are correct here.
However saying /sVlajn@s/ as my mom's uncles from Kansas once did will
cause our ears to bleed. The city of Soledad is said as /solId&d/, but
saying /sAlId&d/ is unacceptable. People who live in Los Gatos (a
somewhat affluent city above the town of Santa Cruz in the Santa Cruz
Mountains) pronounce their city is /l&s g&t@s/, those of us down near
Monterey say /los gAtos/

So depending on how your roomates say Spanish names, they'd get
laughed at _here_. But still pronouncing the words correctly and them
laughing would have anyone I know call them insensitive, and they'd
insult a good amount of the people who live up here.



--
You can turn away from me
but there's nothing that'll keep me here you know
And you'll never be the city guy
Any more than I'll be hosting The Scooby Show

Scooby Show - Belle and Sebastian

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