nucular and Latino

Ittaob at AOL.COM Ittaob at AOL.COM
Wed Nov 14 14:09:25 UTC 2001


In a message dated 11/14/01 3:48:42 AM, paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU writes:

<< How come many Hispanic and non-Hispanic native speakers of English
pronounce

"Latino" and "Latina" as if they were Spanish words when they're speaking

English? I just heard somebody on NPR hesitate for a split second to switch

to Spanish for that word and then back to English. It doesn't sound natural

to my ears. And I'm a native speaker of Spanish. >>

Actually, I've noticed that it has become common, especially in public speech
(e.g., newscasts) for people to pronounce Spanish names and words generally
with an attempt at a Spanish accent. To my ears, not only does this sound
unnatural, but it is in contrast to the American treatment of every other
language, where pronunciations of, say, Italian names and words are (usually
horribly) Anglicized, with no attempt to even approximate the original
pronunciation.

Steve Boatti



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