pronunciation of j in foreign names

[GeneD]

There is one thing concerning English pronunciation I totally ignored till this very moment: pronunciation of foreign (for English speakers) names. It's always a mystery to me as to how you do it. For instance, there is a Spanish name Juan the first letter of which (according to the Spanish rules of reading) is pronounced as h. And I've heard it pronounced by an Englishman as Huan and written as Juan. After that I thought for some time that native English speakers just emulate a foreign pronunciation. At the same time it would mean that all native speakers should be polyglots which sounds impossible; moreover, there is a stereotype of the English as ultimately unwilling to learn foreign languages (I don't know to what extent it's true, though). Hence my confusion. Either you are polyglots and know how the foreign names you use are pronounced, or you have a rule of thumb on how to do this, or something else...

I realise that the field the topic might cover is extremely wide, so maybe it's not a bad idea to confine it a bit. Since the examples I gave are about the letter j, my questions will be:

How do you pronounce the German Johann? Do you use the sound ʤ as in John or is it j as in use?
Do you pronounce the Spanish Juan as Huan?
Are you all polyglots? :-D

 

[GoesStation]

Americans tend to respect native pronunciations more than Brits, but this only goes so far. Juan usually becomes "wahn". Johan is always "yoh-hahn". Wolfgang is usually "wulf-gang". The respect fades rapidly as the language in question becomes less familiar.

Americans are far more likely to be monolingual than polyglot, with the exception that many areas have large numbers of Hispanophones. In those areas some degree of English-Spanish bilingualism is common. In California, Spanish place names are very common. The Anglo population generally pronounces them with at least a nod to their native pronunciation: San Jose is sann hoh-zay, La Jolla is luh hoya.

We're not so good here in Ohio. The town of Rio Grande is reye-oh grand. Bellefontaine is bell fountain. Versailles is vur sales.

 

[jutfrank]

How do you pronounce the German Johann? Do you use the sound ʤ as in John or is it j as in use?

As in use.

Do you pronounce the Spanish Juan as Huan?

I'd say most of us generally try to approximate the Spanish phoneme, which doesn't exist in standard English. To varying degrees of both effort and success, however.

Are you all polyglots? :-D

Da.

 

[jutfrank]

Americans tend to respect native pronunciations more than Brits, but this only goes so far.

Well, I suppose it's very hard to generalise either way, but it's always occurred to me (as a Spanish speaker) how ironic it is that Americans seem to pronounce Spanish words less accurately than Brits. I suspect though that my impression may be a bias arising from the fact that there is a greater influence of American Spanish in the US (Mexican, Caribbean, Central American, etc.) compared to a greater influence of Peninsular Spanish (which is how I speak) in Europe.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Americans tend to respect native pronunciations more than Brits, but this only goes so far. Juan usually becomes "wahn". Johan is always "yoh-hahn". Wolfgang is usually "wulf-gang". The respect fades rapidly as the language in question becomes less familiar.

Americans are far more likely to be monolingual than polyglot, with the exception that many areas have large numbers of Hispanophones. In those areas some degree of English-Spanish bilingualism is common. In California, Spanish place names are very common. The Anglo population generally pronounces them with at least a nod to their native pronunciation: San Jose is sann hoh-zay, La Jolla is luh hoya.

We're not so good here in Ohio. The town of Rio Grande is reye-oh grand. Bellefontaine is bell fountain. Versailles is vur sales.

All true.

And yes, there are plenty of exceptions. More:

- Amarillo rhymes with Brillo.
- Havre de Grace is HAV-er-dee-GRAYSS.
- Cairo, Missouri, is KAY-ro.
- Berlin, Connecticut, is BER-lin.
- Vienna, Maine, rhymes with Diana.
- Calais, Maine, rymes with Dallas.

Volkswagen has two pronunciations here. Some use the German-sounding Folksvagen, some don't. I use the VW cop-out.

But yes, in general, we pronounce a Spanish J like an H and a German or Scandinavian J like a Y.

And for some reason, there are a lot of women here in Maine named Wanita.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Well, I suppose it's very hard to generalise either way, but it's always occurred to me (as a Spanish speaker) how ironic it is that Americans seem to pronounce Spanish words less accurately than Brits. I suspect though that my impression may be a bias arising from the fact that there is a greater influence of American Spanish in the US (Mexican, Caribbean, Central American, etc.) compared to a greater influence of Peninsular Spanish (which is how I speak) in Europe.

You might be on to something. Ever since I moved to Maine, it's bemused me that American visitors who have spent their lives saying taco and Paco can't figure out how to pronounce Saco.

 

[GoesStation]

Well, I suppose it's very hard to generalise either way, but it's always occurred to me (as a Spanish speaker) how ironic it is that Americans seem to pronounce Spanish words less accurately than Brits.

I'm really thinking more of British pronunciations of French words. They're often hilariously inaccurate to my ears. Rule One is that you should always emphasize the first syllable. Given that French doesn't have word stress, the American habit of emphasizing the final syllable isn't necessarily less wrong, but it tends to be a bit closer to French.

 

[jutfrank]

I'm really thinking more of British pronunciations of French words.

That's possible, yes. Do you have any specific words in mind that we could compare?

I immediately think of Notre Dame, which I hear Americans pronouncing as Noh-tra Day-m. Brits tend to say Not-ra Dah-m, which is a bit closer.

I hope my phonetics are understandable.

 

[GoesStation]

Gateau, Calais.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

That's possible, yes. Do you have any specific words in mind that we could compare?

I immediately think of Notre Dame, which I hear Americans pronouncing as Noh-tra Day-m. Brits tend to say Not-ra Dah-m, which is a bit closer.

I hope my phonetics are understandable.

Yeah, but come on. You all say pop-yay ma-shay!

And by the way, the proper pronunciation of that school is no-der DAYM.

 

[emsr2d2]

Yeah, but come on. You all say pop-yay ma-shay!

And by the way, the proper pronunciation of that school is no-der DAYM.

All of us? No! I say "papp-ee-ay mash-ay".

As far as general pronunciation of foreign words goes, I think it really depends on how familiar one is with the original language. I speak French so I know how "papier mâché" is pronounced in French, and that's how I say it. The same goes, for me, for "Notre Dame" - "not-ruh dam", with the relevant guttural "r" sound (sorry about the poor phonetics attempt!)

 

[GoesStation]

American English has a lot of place names and other words borrowed from French. (We plan to give them back someday, honest!) Pronouncing them à la française would sound precious. So it's bat'n rouzh, nohter dame, paper muhshay, etc.

 

[probus]

In Canada, French is to English as Spanish is to English in the USA. In many parts of Canada you are likely to hear French words given their French pronunciation more or less, allowing for the fact that a French person would find the Quebec accent pretty thick.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

All of us? No! I say "papp-ee-ay mash-ay". . . .

Yeah, exactly that's what I meant. Here it's PAYper muSHAY.

 

[emsr2d2]

Yeah, exactly that's what I meant. Here it's PAYper muSHAY.

I can get my head around the stress on the wrong syllable of the second word, for those who don't know where it comes in the original French. However, I have never understood how anyone can pronounce "papier" the same as "paper". Do you literally just ignore that "i" in the middle?!

 

[GoesStation]

I can get my head around the stress on the wrong syllable of the second word, for those who don't know where it comes in the original French. However, I have never understood how anyone can pronounce "papier" the same as "paper". Do you literally just ignore that "i" in the middle?!

Yup. It's a very old borrowing. I think it likely that we'd pronounce it much closer to the French if we were adding it to American vocabulary today. In the 1920s (or whenever the phrase arrived on our shores), I imagine the "i" was dropped because the stuff was clearly something that had been done to paper.

The stress is wrong whether you say "MUH-shay" or "muh-SHAY". French doesn't have word stress. I maintain that the American habit of stressing the second syllable of borrowed bisallybic words is more likely to match how such words are produced by Francophones. The rising intonation that often marks the ends of sentences is perceived as stress to an American ear.

 

[probus]

I think it's more precise to say that French doesn't have stressed syllables. It is monotonic.

 

[jutfrank]

I maintain that the American habit of stressing the second syllable of borrowed bisallybic words is more likely to match how such words are produced by Francophones.

Yes, I think that's right. One case that comes to mind that might show this well is with words with accented past participle endings. For example, British/Irish speakers would typically say fianceé whereas (I think) an American would typically say fianceé. Right?

 

[GoesStation]

Yes, I think that's right. One case that comes to mind that might show this well is with words with accented past participle endings. For example, British/Irish speakers would typically say fianceé whereas (I think) an American would typically say fianceé. Right?

Yes, but I haven't noticed the accent being a factor. I'll try to listen for it.

We hardly ever stress anything but the final syllable of recently-borrowed French words over here.

 

[probus]

British/Irish speakers would typically say fianceé whereas (I think) an American would typically say fianceé. Right?

In Canada we cleave to the BrE pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable. This is an unusual case because normally we use American pronunciation and British spelling.