Don't touch my phonemes (PS)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Naive impressions of a Yankee:

>For example, take the Spanish name 'Don Juan'.  In Britain, the
>tradition is to anglicize this name, and so to pronounce the last
>part as 'JOO- at n'.  This is obvious in Byron's poem 'Don Juan', in
>which the name is constantly rhymed with things like 'new one' and
>'true one'.  In the US, the tradition is to retain the Spanish
>pronunciation as far as possible, and hence to say 'HWAHN', or,
>these days, 'WAHN'.  But the second pronunciation has been steadily
>gaining ground in Britain, and it is now recommended by John Wells
>in his pronouncing dictionary as the preferred UK pronunciation,
>though the traditional 'JOO- at n' is still listed as a permissible,
>but disfavored, alternative.

I've never heard Byron's /dZu at n/, except with respect to Byron's work or as
a joke.

>Similar is 'Don Quixote', where the British tradition is 'KWIKS- at t',
>while the US one is 'kee-HOH-tay'.  Astoundingly, John Wells
>recommends the first not only for Brits but even for Yanks.
>I think he must be wrong here.  I never, ever, heard 'KWIKS- at t'
>before I came to Britain, and I didn't believe it when I did
>hear it.  Even so, my US dictionary gives 'KWIKS- at t' as a second-
>choice pronunciation.  Does anybody in the US really say this?
>And do most Brits really still say 'KWIKS- at t'?  Not at my university,
>I think.

I've NEVER heard /kwIks at t/. I've heard /kwiksout/ as a joke only.
"Quixotism" is /kwIks at tIz@m/, however.

>Another example is the name 'Goethe', which is a little harder to
>anglicize.  In my experience, most academics use a German-style
>pronunciation.  However, John Wells recommends for Brits what I will
>write as 'GUR-t@', except, of course, that the <r> there is not
>pronounced.  Amazingly, he gives 'GAY-t@' -- something like 'gator' --
>as the preferred US pronunciation, even though I don't think I ever
>heard this in my 25 years in the States.  Can any Yanks confirm this?
>My US dictionary gives *only* the German-style pronunciation, which
>is what I usually heard in the States, except that my high-school
>English teacher called him 'GUR-thee', a pronunciation I have never
>heard from anyone else.

Those who lack umlauts use something like /g at rt@/ or else /gEt@/ in my
experience. I don't remember hearing /geit@/. I think these are more or
less reasonable attempts to approximate the German vowel, and not
grotesqueries like /kwiks at t/.

-- Doug Wilson