Dons Quixote and Juan (was: Chile)

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/8/2010 05:13 AM, Damien Hall wrote:
>I believe the traditional BrE pronunciation of 'Quixote' was /'kwIks at t/. I
>was certainly taught that by one traditionalist teacher in the mid-80's
>(who then was probably in his mid-30s). As has been implied, though, you
>don't hear it much if ever any more, even here.

I was instructed by my high school English
teacher around 1950 that the proper pronunciation
was kwiks-oat.  That sounded mistaken to me,
probably because I had heard (and thought it
should be) kee-hoe-tay -- perhaps from my mother
also the high school English teacher, perhaps
because I imagined a Spanish pronunciation,
perhaps because I picked it up in that
traditional place of learning for adolescent boys, the street.

>Byron's poem _Don Juan_ is indeed pronounced /Ju at n/ (ie with an initial
>affricate and English vowels), as far as Wikipedia knows, though of course
>that should be verified. I am not a scholar of English. I do know, though,
>that in Molière's play _Dom Juan_ the character's name is pronounced _à la
>française_, /Zya~/.

The rhyming in Don Juan fits -ahn (or perhaps
- at n), as was noted here previously and has also
been pointed out on a list for the 18th century.

Joel

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