Jarlsberg cheese (1966)

[David Bergdahl]

I had a friend, Dieter, who was born in Kiel (near the Danish border of
Germany), who used /y/ for English J-words (as well as /w/ for /v/ when
tired or a little drunk)--so I suspect the Yarls-burg pronunciation would
be the expected one if one wanted to sound regional.

--On Monday, March 10, 2003 10:16 AM -0500 Laurence Horn
<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:

> At 4:00 AM -0500 3/10/03, Frank Abate wrote:
>> Dear listers,
>>
>> ...
>> One additional bit -- how do Americans pronounce "Jarlsberg"?  With the
>> initial sound like that of an initial Y, or like that of an initial J?  I
>> dunno.
>>
> Always with a /y/ initially in my experience, and I'm sure I would
> have noticed an initial affricate if I'd ever heard one.  If
> anything, that Germanic /y/ for "j" overextends, as when Garrison
> Keillor on Prairie Home Companion pronounces "jalapeño" with an
> initial /y/ instead of /h/ or even /x/.  Another form of
> hyperforeignism that this time isn't derived from the French, but of
> course in Minnesota they're likely to have a lot more /y/ for "j"
> native speakers than either /zh/ or /h/ for "j" speakers.
>
> Larry



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