"The Battle of Bataan" heard as

[Douglas G. Wilson]

On 1/13/2013 9:54 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "The Battle of Bataan" heard as
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>
> The American deaffrication of [dzh] usually occurs in foreign words or
> words thought by the speaker to be foreign, like Elijah, Fallujah, Beijing,
> etc.  I haven't noticed it much in native words or words that aren't proper
> nouns--and, yes, "assuage" comes from French in the 16th c. but is as
> nativized today as "language" [laeNgw at zh].
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 12:32 AM, W Brewer <brewerwa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       W Brewer <brewerwa at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "The Battle of Bataan" heard as
>>
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>>
>> WG: <<<"The Battle of Bataan" heard as Ba-TAHN>>>
>> WB:  I struggle to have a label for the American predilection to replace
>> *a* [ae, ash] with *a* [AH]. (Didn't Mark Twain comment on the elegant
>> broad *a* [AH] vs. vulgar narrow(?) *a* [ash]?)  Something similar happens
>> with French borrowings into American English (hypergallicism), Fr. IPA [a]
>> (low, front) > AmE. [AH] (low, back), not [ae] (lower-mid, front):  In
>> elegantese, back *a* is euphonic, front *a* dysphonic. (All this doubtless
>> abetted by a perceived prestige of British English [AH] vs. SAE [ae] in
>> e.g. pass, dance, half).
>>     BTW, Randi Kaye on CNN the other day actually pronounced *assuage* as
>> [uh-swAHzh], with [ei] > [AH], [dzh] > de-affricated [zh]. (Something about
>> a woman who wanted to "assuage her testimony".)
--

I guess "assuage" is just as nativized as "massage" or "mirage". But how
often have I spoken "assuage"? Or even heard it spoken? I can find out
how to pronounce it by looking in MW3, which shows /@swejdZ/ or so
(presumably preferred by W. Brewer) but also /@swejZ/ and /@swaZ/
versions with a "zh" sound. Guess I can take my pick. Me, I kind of like
the Frenchy version myself.

As for "Bataan", I would say /b at tan/ or /batan/ (with "ah", no ash)
myself, simply because that is what I imagine to be the native
pronunciation, which I prefer to aim for (or guess at) when I have a
choice ... except for the usual very common English-language place-name
versions (e.g., Paris, Rome, Moscow, Bangkok).

Is /ous&k@/ (with ash) or so common for "O[o]saka" (a large city
recently famous for early success against Martian invaders)? I don't
recall hearing it in real life, but ....

-- Doug Wilson

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