Jarlsberg cheese (1966)

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 10:16 AM 3/10/2003 -0500, you 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

Yumpin' Yiminy, you're right, you betcha.  My brudder Yahn and I agree, as 
would have my grandfadder Yonas and my great-uncle Yohann.

But I didn't realize Keillor was that dumb (his show has really gone 
downhill).  Another recent example was the pronunciation by some media 
moguls of the name of the Mexican girl who had the (botched) heart 
transplant as Yessica.  Is there any Mexican dialect that might permit this?