Re: CHAT: F.L.O.E.S.

Douglas Koller, Latin & French wrote:

> Joe writes:
>
>> For instance, pronouncing 'karaoke' [karaoke] would be wrong.  [a] and
>> [o] never appear together in English, and  [e]  simply doesn't exist.
>> [kari@uki(or variants)] is the  legal English pronunciation that hurts
>> my ears the least.
>
>
> Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! /k&rioki/ makes my flesh crawl. It's
> /karaoke/, plain and simple. People may think I sound affected when I
> say it that way, but I've lived in Japan -- I've earned it.


But that's just not English.  The English word 'karaoke' is pronounced
[k&rioki] - no two ways about it.  The Japanese word 'karaoke' is
pronounce [karaoke].  When using a word in a borrowing, the word must
fit the languages phonology(well, unless someone really wants to sound,
well, snobby).   In such a language as English, it's not neccesary to
change the spelling - English doesn't spell phonetically anyway.