Hyperforeignism
Encyclopedia
A hyperforeignism is a non-standard language form resulting from an unsuccessful attempt to apply the rules of a foreign language to a loan word (for example, the application of the rules of one language to a word borrowed from another), or occasionally to a word believed to be a loan word. The result reflects "neither the ... rules of English nor those of the language from which the word in question comes." For example, "habanero" is sometimes spelled or pronounced with a tilde (habañero), which is not the correct Spanish
form from which the English word was borrowed. This error is perhaps influenced by the correct pronunciation of another common pepper with a Spanish-origin name, jalapeño
.
In an extreme form, this can also apply to words that have a foreign origin but have since been assimilated to follow the general rules or even words that are not foreign at all, but are misperceived as foreign.
s in words like Vichyssoise
/z/, in the chess term en prise, and in prix fixe. Similarly, in coup de grâce
, some speakers may omit the final consonant /s/, although it is pronounced in French ku də ɡʁas.
The word cadre is sometimes pronounced ˈ in English, as though it were of Spanish origin. In its French original, the final "e" is silent kɑdʁ, whereas it is a schwa in common English pronunciations. Similarly, French-derived forte (used to mean "strength" in English, e.g., "not my forte") with silent final "e" is pronounced ', by confusion with the Italian musical term of the same spelling, but meaning "loud", which does pronounce the final "e". The double-hyper foreignism with a stressed final syllable, f is also heard.
The "Queen of the hyperforeignisms" is the word lingerie
. Speakers of American English typically pronounce this l, excessively depressing the first vowel
of the French lɛ̃ʒʁi to sound more like a "typical" French nasal vowel
, and rhyming the final syllable with English ray, by analogy
with the many French loanword
s ending in -é, -er, -et and -ez.
Similarly, the French spelling repartie was changed to English spelling repartee, "banter", giving rise to a hyperforeign r.
Those who know French but who are unfamiliar with the many exceptions connected with proper nouns may omit the final z or s in pronouncing names such as Saint-Saëns
, Duras
, Boulez, and Berlioz. The final letter in these words is pronounced as /s/ for the first two words and /z/ for the last two words. There are numerous other examples that do not adhere to standard rules of French pronunciation.
Legal English
is replete with words derived from Norman French
, which for a long time was the language of the courts in England and Wales
. The correct pronunciation of Norman French is often closer to a natural contemporary English reading than to modern French: the attempt to pronounce these phrases as if they were modern French could therefore be considered to be a hyperforeignism. E.g. the clerk's summons Oyez! ("Attention!") should have a final consonant, though whether z or t is uncertain.
The Norman French language furthermore gave southern England some ancient family names that were once associated with the aristocracy, which should be given their natural English pronunciation. A good example is Lestrange which is sometimes mistakenly pronounced with its natural and contemporaneous French inflection.
"Claret
" is often thought of as a French loanword and mispronounced k, losing the "t". In fact it is an Anglicised (and genericised) version of the original French clairet
and therefore the "t" should be pronounced, with the stress on the first syllable: ˈ.
ch of Spanish
is generally realized /tʃ/, similarly to English. Hyperforeign realizations of many Spanish loanwords or proper names may substitute other sounds. Examples include a French-style [ʃ] in the surnames Chávez
and Pinochet
(which may also lose the final "t", a problem also affecting the French word trebuchet
), or a German-influenced [x] or Greek-influenced [k] in machismo. (There is some natural occurrence of [x] and [ç] in Spanish dialects, but their occurrence in Standard Spanish
is usually hyperforeign.)
Often the tilde
on the Spanish ñ
is lost in English orthography, occasionally with comic effect, leaving English speakers who encounter words in writing to guess where it should be added back in, unintentionally substituting or inventing words like "empañada" for "empanada
", which changes the meaning in Spanish from "breaded" to "fogged up" and perhaps even "diapered".
may be realized as /ʒ/, even though the Italian
original has an affricate /dʒ/.
The word bruschetta
, particularly in American English
is commonly rendered as /bruːˈʃɛtə/ with an English 'sh' sound, probably as a result of Americans' familiarity with words and surnames of German origin containing 'sch', which would be pronounced this way. An approximation more reflective of Italian phonology
would be /bruːˈskɛtə/ and the authentic pronunciation in Italian is brusˈketta. A similar problem afflicts the brand name Freschetta, which is routinely pronounced with the 'sh' sound in commercials. The type of cherry, maraschino, the Italian astronomer's name Schiaparelli
and the surname Schiavo are also liable to this mispronunciation. A famous popular culture example of this error is the Canadian band Rush
's song "Red Barchetta
", in which Geddy Lee pronounces barˈtʃɛtə instead of Italian barˈketta.
The word archipelago, now pronounced with a hard k, was modified in the direction of Greek from the Italian arcipelago, pronounced with an affricate: artʃiˈpɛːlaɡo.
A similar effect can arise from confusion between Italian and Spanish. For example, Shakespeare spells the name of the principal male character in The Taming of the Shrew
as "Petruchio
", intended as a phonetic representation of Italian Petruccio: this should be pronounced /peˈtruːtʃo/ in accordance with the Spanish and English sound of "ch". The common pronunciation /peˈtruːkijo/, which assumes that Shakespeare's spelling is genuinely Italian, is therefore a hyperforeignism: in Italian there is no name "Petruchio" so spelled.
A barista
is a worker in a coffee shop: Americans will often substitute "baristo" for a male barista, when in fact "barista" is invariable in gender in Italian and Spanish (as are other words ending in the suffix -ista).
The word "latte" (milk), as in "caffè latte", is often misspelled as latté or lattè, despite having no orthographic accent in Italian and having the stress on the letter "a".
with a /ts/ sound. The root schiz- derives from the Greek σχίζειν (skhizein) meaning "to split". The "z" would be expected to be pronounced /z/ per the English pronunciation of Greek, but the word was coined in German, as Schizophrenie, where "z" is pronounced /ts/. /z/ was the preferred pronunciation for schizophrenia from the word's introduction in English in 1912 until approximately the 1960s, and it remains in use in other (rare) compounds of schiz- such as schizocarp and schizogamy. In the 1960s, the /skits/ pronunciation became popular under the influence of German, although it did not affect the "sch", making the current pronunciation similar to the Italian version schizofrenia (see above Italian words section). As of 2003, the /ts/ pronunciation is the only one given in some major American dictionaries.
, the combination "sch" is pronounced sx, except at the end of a word, when it is pronounced [s]. (In Afrikaans, the same combination is sometimes heard as [sk].) However, most English speakers pronounce it as [ʃ] ("sh") following the rules for German, in words such as Rooibos
ch and veldschoen.
or raj is often rendered /ʒ/, though a closer approximation to the Hindi
sound is /dʒ/. (J in most other Roman-alphabet spellings of words associated with languages of India
is best approximated /dʒ/.)
Another example is the pronunciation of Punjab
as ˈpʊndʒɑːb; a closer approximation to the original is . The letter u in this case represents the Hindi neutral vowel, with a sound similar to that of the u in English cut. (The name comes from the Persian panj āb meaning "five waters".)
In many words pertaining to Indian religion, an originally short vowel is lengthened in some English pronunciations. Examples include i in Sikh
and Shiva
and, in American English, u in Buddha and Buddhist. Thus, for example, Sikh may be pronounced to rhyme with "seek", although a rhyme with "sick" would be closer to the original in most English dialects, and would comport better with standard English reading rules. (Caveat: the vowel quality may be affected by the vowel length.)
with /ʒ/, likely due to confusion with the Russian letter Zhe (Ж) by foreign news correspondents transplanted from Moscow to Beijing. In fact, the Standard Chinese
sound represented by ‹j› in Pinyin
(/tɕ/) is an affricate
similar to the "g" in "gin". The same realization of "J" may afflict mah-jongg
.
Many English speakers pronounce "Genghis Khan
" as ˈ with a hard initial g as in "get", in accordance with the usual transliteration systems for Asian languages. In fact, the original Mongolian name was something like Tchinggis (preserved in Russian as Чингиз Chingiz). The spelling "Genghis" was first used by Marco Polo
, an Italian writing in French. A pronunciation such as ˈ, with a soft g as in "gentle" in accordance with the medieval pronunciation of both those languages, would therefore be closer to Marco Polo's intention as well as to the original name.
Foreign names have been transliterated
inconsistently and then pronounced as native words. For example: "Texas" is transliterated Техас resulting in a pronunciation with a velar fricative (as in the Spanish Tejas), while "Mexico", which actually has a velar fricative, is transliterated Мексика (as in English). "Chicago" is transliterated Чикаго, with an affricate initial consonant and a neutered final vowel: tʃ rather than the original ʃɨˈkɑːɡoʊ.
words containing ch. (Incidentally the French spelling Quichotte reflects an older Spanish pronunciation of x as /ʃ/.)
is the common use of "chevré" in "chevré[ost]" for "chèvre cheese
", which is pronounced quite different from the original French
"chèvre" (possibly by, false analogy with the Swedish "grevé" cheese, grevé
ost).
Similarly "Entrecôte
", which also can often be spelled "Entrecoté", or "Entrêcotè", or some other combination of ^ and ` or ´. More often than not it is pronounced without the ending "t" sound.
French bureau, meaning desk, is usually pronounced /ˈbyːr.ɔ/ in Swedish, with a strong accent on the first syllable, although this is not a common way to accentuate nouns in Swedish. Presently it is not considered a loan word, but presumably it could have been pronounced in this odd way to sound more foreign.
pundit show The Colbert Report is a hyperforeignism used for comedic effect
. It is a play on the host's surname, Colbert , which is of French origin (although the actor's family has no recent French ancestry).
In the BBC
sitcom Keeping Up Appearances
, Richard Bucket
pronounces his surname like the water vessel, but his snobbish wife Hyacinth
insists on b (like bouquet), à la française. Series creator Roy Clarke
said he got the inspiration for this character trait after meeting someone with the surname "Bottom" who insisted it was pronounced /boʊˈtoʊm/ .
Similarly, some people jokingly give retailer Target
the pseudo-French
pronunciation t , as though it were an upscale boutique.
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
form from which the English word was borrowed. This error is perhaps influenced by the correct pronunciation of another common pepper with a Spanish-origin name, jalapeño
Jalapeño
The jalapeño is a medium-sized chili pepper that has a warm, burning sensation when eaten. A mature jalapeño fruit is 2–3½ inches long and is commonly picked and consumed while still green, but occasionally it is allowed to fully ripen and turn crimson red...
.
In an extreme form, this can also apply to words that have a foreign origin but have since been assimilated to follow the general rules or even words that are not foreign at all, but are misperceived as foreign.
French words
Non-native French speakers may erroneously omit the last consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s in words like Vichyssoise
Vichyssoise
Vichyssoise is a thick soup made of puréed leeks, onions, potatoes, cream, and chicken stock. It is traditionally served cold, but can also be eaten hot.-Origin:...
/z/, in the chess term en prise, and in prix fixe. Similarly, in coup de grâce
Coup de grâce
The expression coup de grâce means a death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature. The phrase can refer to the killing of civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the consent of the sufferer...
, some speakers may omit the final consonant /s/, although it is pronounced in French ku də ɡʁas.
The word cadre is sometimes pronounced ˈ in English, as though it were of Spanish origin. In its French original, the final "e" is silent kɑdʁ, whereas it is a schwa in common English pronunciations. Similarly, French-derived forte (used to mean "strength" in English, e.g., "not my forte") with silent final "e" is pronounced ', by confusion with the Italian musical term of the same spelling, but meaning "loud", which does pronounce the final "e". The double-hyper foreignism with a stressed final syllable, f is also heard.
The "Queen of the hyperforeignisms" is the word lingerie
Lingerie
Lingerie are fashionable and possibly alluring undergarments.Lingerie usually incorporates one or more flexible, stretchy materials like Lycra, nylon , polyester, satin, lace, silk and sheer fabric which are not typically used in more functional, basic cotton undergarments.The term in the French...
. Speakers of American English typically pronounce this l, excessively depressing the first vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
of the French lɛ̃ʒʁi to sound more like a "typical" French nasal vowel
Nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the velum so that air escapes both through nose as well as the mouth. By contrast, oral vowels are ordinary vowels without this nasalisation...
, and rhyming the final syllable with English ray, by analogy
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
with the many French loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s ending in -é, -er, -et and -ez.
Similarly, the French spelling repartie was changed to English spelling repartee, "banter", giving rise to a hyperforeign r.
Those who know French but who are unfamiliar with the many exceptions connected with proper nouns may omit the final z or s in pronouncing names such as Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, Duras
Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...
, Boulez, and Berlioz. The final letter in these words is pronounced as /s/ for the first two words and /z/ for the last two words. There are numerous other examples that do not adhere to standard rules of French pronunciation.
Legal English
Legal English
Legal English is the style of English used by lawyers and other legal professionals in the course of their work. It has particular relevance when applied to legal writing and the drafting of written material, including:...
is replete with words derived from Norman French
Anglo-Norman language
Anglo-Norman is the name traditionally given to the kind of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period....
, which for a long time was the language of the courts in England and Wales
Courts of England and Wales
Her Majesty's Courts of Justice of England and Wales are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales; they apply the law of England and Wales and are established under Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The United Kingdom does not have...
. The correct pronunciation of Norman French is often closer to a natural contemporary English reading than to modern French: the attempt to pronounce these phrases as if they were modern French could therefore be considered to be a hyperforeignism. E.g. the clerk's summons Oyez! ("Attention!") should have a final consonant, though whether z or t is uncertain.
The Norman French language furthermore gave southern England some ancient family names that were once associated with the aristocracy, which should be given their natural English pronunciation. A good example is Lestrange which is sometimes mistakenly pronounced with its natural and contemporaneous French inflection.
"Claret
Claret
Claret is a name primarily used in British English for red wine from the Bordeaux region of France.-Usage:Claret derives from the French clairet, a now uncommon dark rosé and the most common wine exported from Bordeaux until the 18th century...
" is often thought of as a French loanword and mispronounced k, losing the "t". In fact it is an Anglicised (and genericised) version of the original French clairet
Clairet
Clairet is a wine that is dark pink in style, and may be described as a full bodied and deep coloured type of rosé. It is considered a specialty of the Bordeaux region and is thought to have originated in Quinsac in Premieres Côtes de Bordeaux...
and therefore the "t" should be pronounced, with the stress on the first syllable: ˈ.
Spanish words
The digraphDigraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
ch of Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
is generally realized /tʃ/, similarly to English. Hyperforeign realizations of many Spanish loanwords or proper names may substitute other sounds. Examples include a French-style [ʃ] in the surnames Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...
and Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
(which may also lose the final "t", a problem also affecting the French word trebuchet
Trebuchet
A trebuchet is a siege engine that was employed in the Middle Ages. It is sometimes called a "counterweight trebuchet" or "counterpoise trebuchet" in order to distinguish it from an earlier weapon that has come to be called the "traction trebuchet", the original version with pulling men instead of...
), or a German-influenced [x] or Greek-influenced [k] in machismo. (There is some natural occurrence of [x] and [ç] in Spanish dialects, but their occurrence in Standard Spanish
Standard Spanish
Standard Spanish or neutral Spanish is a linguistic variety, or lect, that is considered a correct educated standard for the Spanish language. Standard Spanish is not merely Spanish adjusted to fit in prescriptive molds dictated by a linguistic overseeing authority, but also a form of language that...
is usually hyperforeign.)
Often the tilde
Tilde
The tilde is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character comes from Portuguese and Spanish, from the Latin titulus meaning "title" or "superscription", though the term "tilde" has evolved and now has a different meaning in linguistics....
on the Spanish ñ
Ñ
Ñ is a letter of the modern Latin alphabet, formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. It is used in the Spanish alphabet, Galician alphabet, Asturian alphabet, Basque alphabet, Aragonese old alphabet , Filipino alphabet, Chamorro alphabet and the Guarani alphabet, where it represents...
is lost in English orthography, occasionally with comic effect, leaving English speakers who encounter words in writing to guess where it should be added back in, unintentionally substituting or inventing words like "empañada" for "empanada
Empanada
An empanada is a stuffed bread or pastry baked or fried in many countries in Latin America, Southern Europe and parts of Southeast Asia. The name comes from the verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread. Empanada is made by folding a dough or bread patty around the stuffing...
", which changes the meaning in Spanish from "breaded" to "fogged up" and perhaps even "diapered".
Italian words
The "g" in AdagioAdagio
-Music:* Adagio, a tempo marking indicating that music is to be played slowly* A composition marked to be played adagio, e.g.** Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber** Adagio for Strings , a cover of Barber's Adagio by Tiësto...
may be realized as /ʒ/, even though the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
original has an affricate /dʒ/.
The word bruschetta
Bruschetta
Bruschetta is an antipasto from Italy whose origin dates to at least the 15th century. It consists of roasted bread rubbed with garlic and topped with extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper...
, particularly in American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
is commonly rendered as /bruːˈʃɛtə/ with an English 'sh' sound, probably as a result of Americans' familiarity with words and surnames of German origin containing 'sch', which would be pronounced this way. An approximation more reflective of Italian phonology
Italian phonology
This article is about the phonology of the Italian language. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Italian as well as with geographical variants.-Vowels:Notes:*In Italian there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels...
would be /bruːˈskɛtə/ and the authentic pronunciation in Italian is brusˈketta. A similar problem afflicts the brand name Freschetta, which is routinely pronounced with the 'sh' sound in commercials. The type of cherry, maraschino, the Italian astronomer's name Schiaparelli
Giovanni Schiaparelli
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian. He studied at the University of Turin and Berlin Observatory. In 1859-1860 he worked in Pulkovo Observatory and then worked for over forty years at Brera Observatory...
and the surname Schiavo are also liable to this mispronunciation. A famous popular culture example of this error is the Canadian band Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
's song "Red Barchetta
Red Barchetta
"Red Barchetta" is a song by rock band Rush from their album Moving Pictures.-Synopsis:The song describes a future in which many classes of vehicles have been prohibited by "the Motor Law"...
", in which Geddy Lee pronounces barˈtʃɛtə instead of Italian barˈketta.
The word archipelago, now pronounced with a hard k, was modified in the direction of Greek from the Italian arcipelago, pronounced with an affricate: artʃiˈpɛːlaɡo.
A similar effect can arise from confusion between Italian and Spanish. For example, Shakespeare spells the name of the principal male character in The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
as "Petruchio
Petruchio
Petruchio is the male romantic lead in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew . Petruchio is a fortune seeker who enters into a marriage with a strong-willed young woman named Kate and then proceeds to "tame" her temperamental spirit...
", intended as a phonetic representation of Italian Petruccio: this should be pronounced /peˈtruːtʃo/ in accordance with the Spanish and English sound of "ch". The common pronunciation /peˈtruːkijo/, which assumes that Shakespeare's spelling is genuinely Italian, is therefore a hyperforeignism: in Italian there is no name "Petruchio" so spelled.
A barista
Barista
A barista is a person, usually a coffee-house employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks.- Application of the title :...
is a worker in a coffee shop: Americans will often substitute "baristo" for a male barista, when in fact "barista" is invariable in gender in Italian and Spanish (as are other words ending in the suffix -ista).
The word "latte" (milk), as in "caffè latte", is often misspelled as latté or lattè, despite having no orthographic accent in Italian and having the stress on the letter "a".
Greek words
Most English speakers pronounce the z in schizophreniaSchizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
with a /ts/ sound. The root schiz- derives from the Greek σχίζειν (skhizein) meaning "to split". The "z" would be expected to be pronounced /z/ per the English pronunciation of Greek, but the word was coined in German, as Schizophrenie, where "z" is pronounced /ts/. /z/ was the preferred pronunciation for schizophrenia from the word's introduction in English in 1912 until approximately the 1960s, and it remains in use in other (rare) compounds of schiz- such as schizocarp and schizogamy. In the 1960s, the /skits/ pronunciation became popular under the influence of German, although it did not affect the "sch", making the current pronunciation similar to the Italian version schizofrenia (see above Italian words section). As of 2003, the /ts/ pronunciation is the only one given in some major American dictionaries.
Dutch and Afrikaans words
In DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, the combination "sch" is pronounced sx, except at the end of a word, when it is pronounced [s]. (In Afrikaans, the same combination is sometimes heard as [sk].) However, most English speakers pronounce it as [ʃ] ("sh") following the rules for German, in words such as Rooibos
Rooibos
Rooibos is a broom-like member of the legume family of plants growing in South Africa's fynbos.The generic name comes from the plant Calicotome villosa, aspalathos in Greek. This plant has very similar growth and flowers to the redbush...
ch and veldschoen.
Indian languages
The J in the name of the Taj MahalTaj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is a white Marble mausoleum located in Agra, India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal...
or raj is often rendered /ʒ/, though a closer approximation to the Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
sound is /dʒ/. (J in most other Roman-alphabet spellings of words associated with languages of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
is best approximated /dʒ/.)
Another example is the pronunciation of Punjab
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
as ˈpʊndʒɑːb; a closer approximation to the original is . The letter u in this case represents the Hindi neutral vowel, with a sound similar to that of the u in English cut. (The name comes from the Persian panj āb meaning "five waters".)
In many words pertaining to Indian religion, an originally short vowel is lengthened in some English pronunciations. Examples include i in Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
and Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
and, in American English, u in Buddha and Buddhist. Thus, for example, Sikh may be pronounced to rhyme with "seek", although a rhyme with "sick" would be closer to the original in most English dialects, and would comport better with standard English reading rules. (Caveat: the vowel quality may be affected by the vowel length.)
East Asian languages
Some English speakers pronounce BeijingBeijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
with /ʒ/, likely due to confusion with the Russian letter Zhe (Ж) by foreign news correspondents transplanted from Moscow to Beijing. In fact, the Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese, or Modern Standard Chinese, also known as Mandarin or Putonghua, is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Republic of China , and is one of the four official languages of Singapore....
sound represented by ‹j› in Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
(/tɕ/) is an affricate
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...
similar to the "g" in "gin". The same realization of "J" may afflict mah-jongg
Mahjong
Mahjong, sometimes spelled Mah Jongg, is a game that originated in China, commonly played by four players...
.
Many English speakers pronounce "Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
" as ˈ with a hard initial g as in "get", in accordance with the usual transliteration systems for Asian languages. In fact, the original Mongolian name was something like Tchinggis (preserved in Russian as Чингиз Chingiz). The spelling "Genghis" was first used by Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
, an Italian writing in French. A pronunciation such as ˈ, with a soft g as in "gentle" in accordance with the medieval pronunciation of both those languages, would therefore be closer to Marco Polo's intention as well as to the original name.
Arabic
Some Arabic names that originally contain the letter ḥa (ح ħ), like Ahmad أحمد ˈæħmæd, are often pronounced ' , or sometimes ' by people acquainted with the sound kh x, in an attempt to pronounce it correctly.Russian
In Russian, many early loanwords are pronounced as native Russian words with full palatalization. Hyperforeignism occurs when some speakers pronounce these early loanwords without palatization. For example: тема ("theme") -> тэма, текст ("text") -> тэкст, музей ("museum") -> музэй, газета ("gazette") -> газэта and эффект ("effect") -> эффэкт.Foreign names have been transliterated
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
inconsistently and then pronounced as native words. For example: "Texas" is transliterated Техас resulting in a pronunciation with a velar fricative (as in the Spanish Tejas), while "Mexico", which actually has a velar fricative, is transliterated Мексика (as in English). "Chicago" is transliterated Чикаго, with an affricate initial consonant and a neutered final vowel: tʃ rather than the original ʃɨˈkɑːɡoʊ.
Polish
Foreign hypercorrections are also evident in Polish. For example, the Spanish name Quixote becomes Kichot in Polish, preserving the modern Spanish pronunciation (Polish ch = Spanish x = [x]); but this is often pronounced with [ʂ], as in FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
words containing ch. (Incidentally the French spelling Quichotte reflects an older Spanish pronunciation of x as /ʃ/.)
Swedish
An example of hyperforeignism in SwedishSwedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
is the common use of "chevré" in "chevré[ost]" for "chèvre cheese
Chèvre cheese
Goat cheese, or chèvre , is cheese made out of the milk of goats.-Properties:Although cow's milk and goat's milk have similar overall fat contents, the higher proportion of medium-chain fatty acids such as caproic, caprylic and capric acid in goat's milk contributes to the characteristic tart...
", which is pronounced quite different from the original French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
"chèvre" (possibly by, false analogy with the Swedish "grevé" cheese, grevé
Greve
Greve is any of the following:* Greve Municipality, in Region Sjælland on the island of Zealand in Denmark** Greve Strand, the municipal seat of Greve** Greve Station, one of the railway stations in the Danish municipality** Greve Parish...
ost).
Similarly "Entrecôte
Entrecôte
In French, the word entrecôte denotes a premium cut of beef used for steaks.A traditional entrecôte comes from the rib area of the carcass, corresponding to the steaks known in different parts of the English-speaking world as rib, rib-eye, club, Scotch fillet, or Delmonico.The term may also be used...
", which also can often be spelled "Entrecoté", or "Entrêcotè", or some other combination of ^ and ` or ´. More often than not it is pronounced without the ending "t" sound.
French bureau, meaning desk, is usually pronounced /ˈbyːr.ɔ/ in Swedish, with a strong accent on the first syllable, although this is not a common way to accentuate nouns in Swedish. Presently it is not considered a loan word, but presumably it could have been pronounced in this odd way to sound more foreign.
Hyperforeignism for comic effect
The silent "t" in "Report" in the title of the parodyParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
pundit show The Colbert Report is a hyperforeignism used for comedic effect
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
. It is a play on the host's surname, Colbert , which is of French origin (although the actor's family has no recent French ancestry).
In the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
sitcom Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances
Keeping Up Appearances is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. Centred on the life of eccentric, social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket , the sitcom portrays a social hierarchy-ruled British society...
, Richard Bucket
Richard Bucket
Richard Bucket is a fictional character played by Clive Swift in the British comedy TV series Keeping Up Appearances, which was aired from 1990 to 1995...
pronounces his surname like the water vessel, but his snobbish wife Hyacinth
Hyacinth Bucket
Hyacinth Bucket, who insists her last name is pronounced "Bouquet" , is the main character in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances , played by Patricia Routledge.-Personality:...
insists on b (like bouquet), à la française. Series creator Roy Clarke
Roy Clarke
Roy Clarke OBE is an English comedy writer.-Career:Clarke is best known for creating BBC Sitcoms; Last of the Summer Wine, Open All Hours and Keeping Up Appearances...
said he got the inspiration for this character trait after meeting someone with the surname "Bottom" who insisted it was pronounced /boʊˈtoʊm/ .
Similarly, some people jokingly give retailer Target
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
the pseudo-French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
pronunciation t , as though it were an upscale boutique.