the Freedom Fricative

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:55 AM -0500 12/5/03, David Bowie wrote:
>From:    Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>: At 8:55 AM -0500 12/4/03, Steve Boatti wrote:
>:: In a message dated 12/3/03 11:06:27 PM, Bapopik at aol.com writes:
>
>:::  (GOOGLE)
>:::  http://eat.epicurious.com/dictionary/food/index.ssf?DEF_ID=1895
>:::  gianduja
>:::  [zhahn-DOO-yah]
>
>:: The Italian pronunciation of "gianduja" is "jahn-DOO-yah," not
>:: "zhahn-DOO-yah."
>
>: Hyperforeignism (the Ta"ZH" Majal/Bei"ZH"ing Syndrome) strikes again!
>: That old Freedom Fricative just keeps popping up, doesn't it?
>
>I don't know if this is necessarily hyperforeignism--some of us simply have
>rampant [Z]s where others might have [dZ]s.
>
Well, the term "hyperforeignism", admittedly not self-explanatory, is
motivated by the idea that such speakers are generalizing the fact
that French words/names have the [Z] fricative to the practice of
spreading this [Z] to other foreign names, even when the language in
question has no [Z].  So the use of [Z] in Beijing, Taj Mahal,
Gianduja, etc., is not attributable to a fact about either English or
of Mandarin/Hindi(?)/Italian, but ultimately to a fact about French
(and about English speakers' treatment of French as the foreign
language par excellence and/or the prestige foreign language).

larry