parMEzian cheese

[Ed Keer]

Could anyone recommend some sources that describe
these dialects? I'm interested in where this
pronunciation comes from. I know several Sicilians and
they don't have the final vowel deletion.

Ed


--- "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU> wrote:
> >Please rememnber final weakly stressed vowel
> deletion in southern
> >Italian (and recall that the overwhelming
> percentage of Italian
> >immigrants in America come from Sicily and the
> south) . Therefore,
> >/par-me-ZHAN/ is what many native speakers would
> have said (and what
> >many non-Italian speakers would have heard).
>
> dIn Is
>
>
> >In a message dated 10/1/02 11:59:06 AM,
> pmcgraw at LINFIELD.EDU writes:
> >
> ><< Now the invented "Parmesian" seems to have been
> >supplanted by the equally invented "parmeZHAN" (as
> also noted by Peter
> >Richardson), apparently via the line of reasoning:
> "To make a word sound
> >more foreign, and hence more authentic, stress the
> last syllable, pronounce
> >spelled <g> as 'zh' and ignore all other spelling
> cues." >>
> >
> >I suspect "Par-me-ZHAN" comes from
> Italian-Americans pronouncing it that way
> >based on the Italian pronunciation of "Parmigiano."
> In other words, a
> >conflation of "Par-me-ZAN" with "Par-mi-JAN-o."
> >
> >Steve Boatti
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> Professor of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic,
>       Asian & African Languages
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027
> e-mail: preston at msu.edu
> phone: (517) 353-9290


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