basque/Basque/bask

[A. Maberry]

For me bask/basque/Basque are homophones--2 hours from the Canadian
border crossing at Blaine, WA, but 3-6 hours from Canada.

It seems to me that the /ae/ in foreign words is definitely seen here as a
Canadian pronunciation, as in p/ae/sta and M/ae/zda, but it isn't a
pronunciation that most Northwesterners would assume if they had never
seen or heard the words "pasta" or "Mazda".

allen
maberry at u.washington.edu


On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Lynne Murphy wrote:
> >
> > 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
>