Jarlsberg cheese (1966)

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:28 PM -0500 3/10/03, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
>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).

I think it's still usually pretty good (if a little uneven), but
that's what makes horse races.  In any case, the /y/ for *j*alapeño
was from a bit that must be at least three or four years old, so that
can't be taken as evidence.

>  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?

I suspect that's another instance of the same phenomenon, "foreign"
*j* in initial position gets pronounced /y/.

larry