schwa insertion

[James A. Landau]

The classic example of schwa insertion is the Mexican city of "Tijuana" which
north of the border is commonly pronounced as "Tiajuana", which would be the
Spanish for "Aunt Joan" or "Aunt Joanne" (in my post of 22 January I rendered
it as "Aunt Jane" (and also misspelled "Housatanic")).  The schwa here is
firmly established in Norteamericano music, e.g. Herb Alpert and the Tiajuana
Brass, the folk song "Here we are in the Tiajuana jail"

Someone whose name I failed to note told me this schwa insertion was due to
the lack of any /ee wa/ strings in English, so English speakers found it
necessary to insert something to make "Tijuana" pronounceable.  However,
"marijuana" does not get rendered into English as "mariajuana"---this may be
because the "i" of "marijuana" is already a schwa.

     - Jim Landau


        - Jim Landau