foreign and domestic "a"

[W Brewer]

JL:  <<<The pronunciation in the movie "Ghandi" is  / gaendi /.>>>
WB:  As far as I can tell from Google translator, the Hindi spelling of
Gandhi is something like:
(initial stress) [g]+[long AH]+[n]+[aspirated d]+[long i], which would come
out in American as ['gAHn-di]. In the 1982 movie, there is a scene in which
a British prison guard shouts out: "Gandhi! I want Gandhi!" ['gaendi]. That
sounded really rude.
WB says Mahatma Gandhi [m@'haetm@ 'gaendi]. My sociolect is showing.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org