Re: CHAT: Need a word for these!

--- In conlang@y..., Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@F...>

wrote:

> > [Pronouncing foreign words correctly]
> Well, it's quite a unique behaviour in the world!
Nah, I don't think so...  it's just not common in the US and France.  But
Americans and French are cultural ignorants and isolationists,
respectively.  ;-)

In German-speaking countries, foreign words are either written the original
way (esp. in Switzerland, where we grow up hearing at least 4 languages and
knowing at least 2 of the) or adapted to the German orthography so as to
retain as much as possible of its original pronunciation.

Some people, however, simply don't know enough phonology to pronounce an
originally-written word correctly.  For example, you'll hear /sti:k/ for "steak"
from certain ignorants in Switzerland.  ;-)  Game or movie titles with
irregular pronunciation like "species" or "tomb raider" fool the majority of
people here.  I think I've even heard /tombrejd6/ in a TV ad.  ;-)

Also, for some reason (probably a widely-used but misleading standard book
for learning English somewhere in the remote past...) many Swiss speakers use
/9/ (as in French neuf) to represent English /V/, although
/A/ would fit the German phonology just as well, and sound more authentic.
Some Swiss would have no scruples to say /s@ 9s@r/ for "the other", which
sounds even more stupid than the High German accent /z@ ?az6/.

> I know that in
France,
> pronouncing borrowed words like they are in the original language
(especially
> German or English words) gets you considered as a geek, or a posh
who wants to
> show how much more intelligent he is than his interlocutor. Both are
quite
> despised :))
They're just jealous of your language skills.  ;-)


-- Christian Thalmann

--
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
http://www.gmx.net