Don't touch my phonemes (PS)

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 12:36:24 +0000, larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry
Trask) wrote:

>In the other direction, the tradition in Spain has usually been to
>hispanize foreign names.  So, for example, the name 'Shakespeare'
>has traditionally been pronounced 'shah-keh-speh-AH-reh', with five
>syllables, stress on the fourth syllable, and completely Spanish
>phonology apart from the retention of the non-native esh.  In recent
>years, however, it has come to be regarded as more fashionable to
>reproduce the English pronunciation as closely as possible, typically
>producing something like 'SHEH-keh-speer'.

Or something like Che'spir.

>Some years ago, a
>distinguished Spanish academic appeared on TV, and he used the
>traditional five-syllable version.  He was widely laughed at,
>even though he was merely expressing a preference for the traditional
>policy over the modern one.  But I have the impression that the
>traditional policy is very much on the way out in Spain, on the
>whole anyway.  Yet Spaniards, in my experience, still pronounce
>'Mozart' as though it were a Spanish <Mozar>, with theta, final
>stress, and no /t/.  Is this still the norm in Spanish?

I think I've also heard initial stress.  On Catalan radio, I think
it's /mozart/, with /z/, stress varies.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl