Date:    Wed, 13 May 1998 10:27:32 -0700
<br>From:    "A. Vine" <avine[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ENG.SUN.COM>
<br>Subject: Re: Beijing /j/
<br>
<br>Larry Horn wrote:
<br>>
<br>> At 12:14 AM -0500 5/13/98, Donald M. Lance wrote:
<br>> >>Does anyone know why the j in Beijing is frequently pronounced as if French?
<br>> >>The Mandarin pronunciation is clearly like a "regular" English j, and the
<br>> >>switch from Peking happened recently enough that it shouldn't have gotten
<br>> >>mixed up.
<br>> >
<br>> >For the same reason people say 'machete' and 'Chicano' as if they were
<br>> >French words.  Also the -ch- in 'Appalachian', said like 'appelation'.  And
<br>> >some other words I can't think of at the moment.  Radio and TV announcers
<br>> >seem to have a rule that says "when in doubt, assume French origin."  But,
<br>> >when in doubt, -ei- is treated as if it were German.  Thirty or so years
<br>> >ago, before news people knew that Brunei existed, I knew someone from
<br>> >there.  He said it 'bru-nay'.  Now we just hear 'bru-nigh'.
<br>> >
<br>> >DMLance
<br>> Clearly, there's a real phenomenon of generalized "foreign pronunciation"
<br>> that may well encompass the [zh] pronunciation of Beijing.  But I'm not
<br>> sure all the above fit under that category.  I've usually heard "Chicano"
<br>> with a Spanish affricate rather than a French fricative, but I think
<br>> there's also a phonological process whereby a number of words in which [ch]
<br>> occurs in a totally unstressed syllable is de-affricativized.  Consider,
<br>> for example, Chicago (with a [sh]) vs. Chi-town and Chisox ('Chicago White
<br>> Sox') with a [ch].  Or chiropodist, with either initial [k] or [sh], but
<br>> not [ch].  Or cheroot (evidently from Tamil), usually (in my experience)
<br>> [sh] rather than [ch].  I think the key here is not the extension of [+
<br>> French] but the lack of stress on the first syllable; maybe Chicano (in
<br>> losing its [+ Spanish] feature?) is assimilated to this class rather than
<br>> treated as specifically French.
<br>>
<br>> Larry
<br>
<br>Larry, do you really hear "cheroot" that often?
<br>
<br>My personal pet peeve is the Frenchising of Italian, most recently a
<br>frozen pizza product called "Di Giorno", which is advertised as though
<br>it were "Di jour no".  Don't get me started on the Italian
<br>misspellings...
<br>
<br>But could it possible be that it's easier (lazier?) to use the 'zh'
<br>rather than the 'dzh' sound?  In the case of "Di Giorno", it's certainly
<br>easier to revert to the 'zh'.  Affricates require a tremendous amount of
<br>mouth work, and US speech seems to lean towards minimal mouth movement.
<br>
<br>I do concur, though, that Americans are more familiar with French and
<br>German pronunciations than Italian and Russian, and therefore might make
<br>certain assumptions about pronouncing a particular word.  Certainly US
<br>English contains more French and German than Italian and Russian.
<br>Interestingly enough, US English tends to be truer to the original
<br>French pronunciation than British English (e.g. Beaulieu, Ypres,
<br>lieutenant).  Perhaps it is an island mentality, or a long-standing
<br>history of conflict which causes the Brits to differentiate their
<br>pronunciation.
<br>
<br>Andrea
<br>