basque/Basque/bask

[Lynne Murphy]

>
> On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 10:51  AM, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>
> > --On Wednesday, April 17, 2002 10:50 am -0400 Benjamin Fortson
> > <fortson at FAS.HARVARD.EDU> wrote:
> >
> >> I've never heard Basque pronounced with a back vowel, myself. I've always
> >> pronounced it as [baesk], as has every linguist and non-linguist that I'
> >> ve
> >> ever heard say it...
> >
> > I'm starting to think I'm crazy then, although the Basque scholar here and
> > I are both from Western NY.  Perhaps it's local to that area?
> >
>
> How far west? How close to Canada? Could your pronunciation have been
> influenced by people who thought of /ae/ in foreign words as a Canadian
> pronunciation and who, therefore, wished to avoid it?
> --
> Alice Faber

2 hours from Canada--and we worship the Canadians and think them much cooler than ourselves!  I doubt any of our pronunciations are Canadian-avoidance,
since I left NY with all sorts of Canadianisms that I never realized were
Canadian until I moved to New England and got mocked.

Lynne