Judaize

[Geoff Nathan]

I'm surprised nobody else has responded to this, but the origin of the /i/ (tense high front vowel) pronunciation seems to me to be at least in part by analogy with 'Judaism', which I, and many others pronounce
[dZudiIzm], especially, as Mark notes, when the relevant syllable is unstressed.

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Mark Mandel" <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> From: "Mark Mandel" <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Monday, November 9, 2009 2:36:00 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: Judaize
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Judaize
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 8:44 AM, David Barnhart
> <dbarnhart at highlands.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I was struck very early this morning with the seeming contrast
> between the
> > spelling of Judaize and the pronunciation /-i:-/ variant.
>
> That is,  /'dZu:.di.aIz/, yes? MW Online uses e with macron for the
> 2nd
> vowel, but in this context its quantity has to be short.
>
> > The variant is recognized by MW3 and NOAD and AHD and RHU.   Other
> variants
> > are schwa and /-ei-/.   WBD has only /-i:-/.   ACD has only /-i-/,
> probably
> > corresponding to schwa.  OED has only /-ei-/.
> >
> > My question is this: where did the /-i:-/ variant come from?
>
> /eI/ -> /i/ seems like a normal qualitative reduction under
> destressing, vs.
> only /ei/ when stressed in "Judaic". MW and OED have the same sets of
> vowels
> in "Judaism".
>
> m a m
>
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