Kou wrote:
>From: "Fabian"
>
>> > > 'chiaroscuro'
(snip)
>> Most Italians round here (we have a big Italian community in town) would
>> say /tSa.../. In the Italian dialect that dominates here, orthographic I
>> turns /k/ to /tS/ and /g/ to /dZ/. Palatisation, I do believe.
>
>Kinda defeats the purpose of having the "h" in there, I should think. "cia"
>gives you /tSa/, with the orthographic "h" bringing it back to /kja/, and
>the Italian community by you ignores the "h" and goes back to /tSa/?
>Weirdness.
>
>So "che" and "chi" are read /tSe/ and /tSi/? How do they distinguish from
>"ce" and "ci"?
I too found this a little difficult to believe. Perhaps they've been too
long exposed to Australian English ??? :_)