Nicaragua

[Dale Coye]

There are three issues when you have to pronounce a foreign place name or
loan word: 1) which phonemes to use  2) what phonetic realization to give those
phonemes and 3) will everyone think I'm an idiot if I use the wrong choice?
For Van Gogh, as was said, most Americans can't pronounce velar fricatives,
especially initially.  Moreover I would guess 99% of Americans know him simply as
Van Go, so to use the fricative would seem to be calling attention to
yourself as a superior sort of individual.  The same is less true of Bach,
because--I'm just guessing!--a larger percentage of educated Americans have heard music
professionals use the German pronunciation, though certainly the risk of
sounding pretentious is also present.
    For Kant the idiot shoe is on the other foot.  You sound like an
ignoramus if you Americanize it with vowel of "can".  Am. Eng. would use a low central
vowel if they have one--in r-less East. NE the vowel of "cart"--in much of
the rest (but not all) of the US it would be the vowel of Don.  But the third
possibility--the vowel of 'cut', besides the taboo associations, is not an exact
match at the phonetic level.  Germ short a is not exactly the same as the
Am.vowel in "cut"--there's lots of allophones in both languages, but generally
the Germ. short a is lower than Am. cut, so Am. /ah/ is not such a bad fit.
     For the Sp. words it wasn't clear from the first post what was
objectionable in the newscaster's pronunciation--was it phonemic choice or phonetic
choice?  As an American you pretty much have to use the /ah/ phoneme, but at the
phonetic level (the trilled or tapped Rs, etc) I would say, as long as it
doesn't get in the way of understanding, why not use the real Spanish sounds?  As
an American you have to make these choices all the time in foreign languages,
French for example, if you bring up a guy like Bill Clinton, you sound foolish
if Frenchify it, substituting the high front Fr. /i/, the Fr. /L/ etc., but
it can help people to follow you better.  Not to mention Japanese where the Ls
really throw them for a roop unless you substitute the Japanese sounds.
  Dale Coye
Wilton,NH