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This old CollegeHumor sketch highlights an interesting phenomenon: it's often frowned upon or disapproved of, at least in the US and England, to pronounce a loanword according to the phonetics of the language it was borrowed from. For example, anecdotally in the UK, an English speaker would probably think it strange if I pronounced "karaoke" according to the Japanese カラオケ pronunciation, as opposed to the pronunciation common in the US/UK: /ˌkæriˈoʊki/.

I think that in this case, this is because the different phonetics of the Japanese word make the "native" pronunciation jarring in the middle of a sentence. Having to modify the intonation to match Japanese pitch-accent for example, and using sounds such as the alveolar flap in ラ which aren't found in English, would probably not be what the listener was expecting to hear unless the conversation was about the Japanese language or pronunciation. So using the "native" pronunciation might be frowned upon/disapproved of simply because it is unexpected in the linguistic context.

The "point" that the video makes is that doing this is considered "over-pronouncing", and is considered either funny or embarrassing in contexts of two or more native speakers of a language (such as English) where one of them "over-pronounces" a loanword from another language. Presumably again it would not be frowned upon if (e.g.) English speakers were talking to Japanese natives about "karaoke" and used the Japanese pronunciation.

So my question is this:

  • Does the disapproval towards approximating foreign loanword pronunciations occur at all outside of the context of English speakers using a non-English loanword?
  • If so, is it common to disapprove of foreign loanword pronunciations? Or conversely, is it common in many other parts of the world to emulate foreign loanword pronunciations to the best of the speaker's ability?
Lou
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    I don't think this is necessarily true in the UK. Loads of people use French-like pronunciations for French words like croissant, for example. I think it depends quite a lot on the word and how many other native speakers use that pronunciation. The karaoke example might be found odd, basically because few people have ever heard that pronunciation or know it sounds like that in Japanese. – Araucaria - him Aug 23 '22 at 13:28
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    I think [OPINION ONLY] that this could be frame-challenged; anecdotally, it appears to me to depend on several factors, including but not necessarily limited to socioeconomic class of the speaker, origin language of the word, and "degree of uptake" in the borrowing language (i.e., is it still perceived as a 'foreign' word, or has it been fully assimilated into the borrowing language). – Jeff Zeitlin Aug 23 '22 at 13:28
  • The best we can do here is offer opinions and give examples. It's clearly not universal, and it clearly has a multitude of sources and variations. – jlawler Aug 23 '22 at 17:25
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    @Araucaria-him I’ve never heard a UK speaker pronounce croissant as in French while speaking English. Some people will use the fairly nativised variant /ˈkwæsɒnt/, others the slightly less nativised variant /kɹəˈsɑnt/, but [kʀwaˈsɑ̃] is not a variant I’ve heard, and I’m quite certain most speakers would find it every bit as odd as [ka̠ɺa̠o̞ke̞] if used in normal conversation. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 23 '22 at 22:05
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    @JanusBahsJacquet We must be in very different parts of the UK, then — I can't recall ever hearing anyone pronounce the ‘t’ in croisssant! Brits may not manage an authentic native French pronunciation, but they generally get a reasonable approximation; certainly much closer to that than how it'd be pronounced as a native English word. – gidds Aug 23 '22 at 22:40
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    @gidds I’ve heard both the more and the less nativised versions with and without the final t – but both are still clearly Anglicised forms, using English phonemes, and quite different from how those same people would say the word if they were in France and attempting to actually speak French. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 23 '22 at 23:07
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    An interesting question - although I agree that this probably isn't on the right track for identifying the factors, for example someone pronouncing hentai in precise Japanese vs. something like fugu. Another often-ribbed example: Barthelona (sorry, not feeling like pulling out the IPA keyboard). – Azor Ahai -him- Aug 23 '22 at 23:20
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    I'm not entirely sure that this comes up in most other languages, since they have more a more rigid correlation between spelling and pronunciation. The loan word will thus be spelled the way it is pronounced in that language most of the time, with minor exceptions. – trlkly Aug 23 '22 at 23:33
  • @trlkly It's a phonotactics question, not orthography. – Azor Ahai -him- Aug 23 '22 at 23:35
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    @AzorAhai The question touches on both aspects. The reason "karaoke" is spelled the way it is in English is that it follows an official romanization of the Japanese, even though said romanization does not corresponds the usual English pronunciation. It is only because of this that the situation comes up where someone might try to pronounce the Japanese phonemes. The same is true of most loan words in English (they use the original spelling or an official transliteration) , unless they are so old they predate spelling standardization. – trlkly Aug 23 '22 at 23:51
  • In Spain, pizza is pronounced close to the Italian, while puzzle is pronounced in a Spanish way. The latter has led to the Real Academia Española attempting to respell it as puzle to some derision by external commentators. – Henry Aug 24 '22 at 09:49
  • I'm in southern England/south and generally hear croissant pronounced like an English person speaking French - close to the French pronunciation. But there are plenty of variations, from something like "croissant" with a "t" as in "un croissant et un pain au chocolat" despite no following vowel, to something that might be better spelt "crussent". – Chris H Aug 24 '22 at 10:55
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    But in England, imitating the original pronunciation for French seems fairly common, less so for other languages; visiting the US, I've found that it's Spanish that stays closer to the original, so perhaps there's something about the most taught second language – Chris H Aug 24 '22 at 10:56
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    @ChrisH: I find that, for Spanish, Americans generally stick to Spanish consonant rules where the sound exists in English, but apply English vowel sounds (which are admittedly quite flexible, so sometimes they get it right by accident). So "jalapeño" honors the Spanish pronunciation of the 'j' and 'ñ', the 'p' already agrees, and the 'l' is close enough. But the 'a's are pronounced by English rules (first as in "cat", second a schwa, where in Spanish they'd both match English "cot"), the 'e' is inconsistent (sometimes as in "pen", sometimes as in "cream"), and only the 'o' matches Spanish. – ShadowRanger Aug 24 '22 at 12:14
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    But we don't follow the rules for the digraphs; "rr" (a sound which has no approximation in any American English dialect I'm aware of, only preserved in a few Scottish dialects of English last I checked) is just an English 'r' (since even the Spanish 'r' doesn't occur in English) and 'll' is usually just an English 'l' (only rarely is it pronounced close to Spanish as an English 'y' sound). – ShadowRanger Aug 24 '22 at 12:16
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    @ShadowRanger "jalapeño" was a good choice on your part - British English tends to match American, disagreeing with my point (though the e often ends up more like the English word "eh"). And of course Spanish pronunciation isn't the same everywhere, any more than English is – Chris H Aug 24 '22 at 12:30
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    @ShadowRanger The o doesn’t match the Spanish – it’s a diphthong in English, a monophthong in Spanish. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '22 at 18:23
  • The way foreign words are pronounced in another language can go in any number of ways, all of which boil down to what an individual knows or does not know or wants to say. In any case, this question is unanswerable as a generality. If you want to say the c in blanc de blanc for the grapes from the Champagne region, you can. Other English speakers who speak French might not pronounce the c. Who's keeping score? It boils down to a sort of recondite game for oneself and those listening. Finally, I find the term "over-pronouncing" particularly jarring and non-linguistic. – Lambie Aug 24 '22 at 18:47
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    I found it very interesting learning Hungarian to notice the different approach to loanwords that seemed to be present. Hungarian spelling is different enough that there were a number of words I didn't realise were loanwords from English when I saw them written down, and then clicked later when I said them out loud. It seems the Hungarian approach to loanwords is to write down in Hungarian spelling as close as possible to the foreign word is pronounced, whereas English often writes the word as it is spelled in the foreign language (and then mangles a pronunciation from that). – Ben Aug 25 '22 at 03:17
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    @Lambie Yes, as you and jlawler said it's a question which provokes a variety of responses. But the core of the question was "Is this phenomenon universal, or only found in certain cultures and languages?" The variety of interesting answers and comments that have come up have mainly shown that no, it's not found in all cultures or languages. W/r/t "over-pronouncing", the video I linked is not a linguistics video, it's a funny sketch. But it's prompted this question in me which I've been sitting on for a few years now. – Lou Aug 25 '22 at 06:46
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    You have posed a leading question. It assumes "stigmatization", which, by the way, is the wrong word here. Your question cannot be answered as posed. – Lambie Aug 25 '22 at 14:27
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    @Lambie what does "non-linguistic" mean? I feel that "over-pronouncing" is a perfectly cromulent word to describe "pronouncing a word by exaggerating the stereotypical aspects of the language" (which, to be clear, is what is going on in the video, but is not necessarily the case when attempting to use the original language's pronunciation - see my answer) – scubbo Aug 25 '22 at 22:40
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    So this question has gotten a lot of great responses, but I think @Lambie is correct that the question was not inherently answerable as it stood. I've edited the question to try and make it more focused, in that I am asking specifically whether this phenomenon occurs outside of English-speaking contexts, and whether it is common. I believe this is answerable. – Lou Aug 26 '22 at 09:41
  • Lou, I speak three languages and English is my native language. In my somewhat long life, I have come across many situations involving loanwords but I don't think I can say what the "whole culture" or the culture as a whole thinks of it. I can only point to lived experience. The only answer here would be an opinion. – Lambie Aug 26 '22 at 15:11
  • This question continues to be linguistically naive. Of course, there are attitudes in other languages about loanwords. Why wouldn't there be? – Lambie Mar 18 '23 at 15:32
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    @Lambie you are missing the point so consistently that I can only believe that it's deliberate. No-one disputes that there are "attitudes in other languages (well, cultures, if we're going to play the nitpicking game) about loanwords". The question is about whether a particular attitude about a particular form of pronunciation is common. And yes, given that few of us are sociologists who've conducted formal large-scale studies on this, the querent is seeking a (hopefully justified) opinion (about cultures the answerer's familiar with), not an objective universal provable fact. That's fine. – scubbo Mar 28 '23 at 01:40
  • @scubbo The OP says "stigmatized across most** cultures**. The OP does not say: "In your native language (culture), what is the attitude toward pronouncing loanwords as they are pronounced in their language of origin?" That might be surveyable within some social group. But I've never seen a survey like this, because it remains basically unanswerable. For every person I know that says: croissant in English with sounded final t, I know someone who doesn't pronounce the t. – Lambie Mar 28 '23 at 14:34
  • cont'd: The latter usually know French or pride themselves on their pronunciation. So, there are two groups, yeah? So, what does the non-pronouncing group think of the pronouncing group? Or the other way around. It seems to me that stigmatizing is the wrong word. You might as well ask: What do college-educated people think of non-college educated people and vice versa? – Lambie Mar 28 '23 at 14:40
  • @Lambie I took on board your original feedback and modified the question accordingly in an attempt to make it more answerable: the text you've quoted isn't in the question anymore. I'm not sure why you felt compelled to comment on this question 8 months later without any prompting, but I can't help feeling that your criticisms remain more pedantic than precise. – Lou Mar 29 '23 at 06:40
  • To be clear, the nugget of the question is now: 1. Does the posited attitude towards loanword pronunciation exist outside of English culture (answerable) and 2. If so (not assuming it to be the case), is the attitude common? (Subjective, sure, but answerable). – Lou Mar 29 '23 at 06:43
  • @Lou For me, the question as you have now restated it, still does not make sense. You say it is posited (by you, right?) and then ask if it exists outside of English culture. Also, I don't see how one can claim what you claim attitude-wise. Please read the continuation of my comment to scubbo above. This is my last comment here. – Lambie Mar 29 '23 at 13:04
  • @Lou I speak four languages and am familiar with loanwords in all four and I have never heard of this attitude ever. – Lambie Dec 07 '23 at 15:34

10 Answers10

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I'm not familiar enough with other cultures to answer the question but I have a perspective that I haven't seen expressed in the comments or answers. The other answer also proposed a predictive system rather than providing direct answers1, so I thought I'd weigh in.

Stigmatizing an honest attempt to use original-language pronunciation can be a reaction against prescriptivism motivated by reverse-classism/anti-elitism. The prevalence of this phenomenon will, I suspect, be primarily affected by a given society's attitude to class. However, I don't believe that this is precisely what's being portrayed in this video.

There is a reasonable argument in support of Mike Trapp's (the "over-pronouncer") actions. He claims that "he's not imposing his Anglicized pronunciations on these foreign words.".

If you believe that the English word "café" and the French word "café" are one and the same word rather than cognates2, then it's not unreasonable to claim that "the language that invented this word should be the authority on how it's pronounced". His claim that it's "less racist" might be supported or disputed by the actual speakers of that language (especially - see my aside, below). However, "embarrassment at being adjacent to a racist action" is not the only consideration of why a bystander might react negatively to using original pronunciations.

Familiarity with foreign languages is a privilege - one usually granted by education, itself often (not always) an indicator of wealth. Using original-language pronunciations can therefore be seen as an arrogant demonstration of privilege and/or an effort to differentiate oneself from the uneducated. "I'm better than you because I know another language <because I am wealthy enough to have been educated enough to learn it>". This is similar to the single-language case of prescriptivism being used as a tool of classism - "I'm better than you because I employ the Subjective Subjunctive mood 'correctly' <because I am wealthy enough to have been educated enough to learn it>" isn't the same assertion, but it rhymes.

Bystanders to an original-language pronunciation might be embarrassed or hostile towards it not because it's seen as racist (though - again - see below), but because it is perceived (accurately or not) as an insulting attempt to "claim class". Assuming that the listeners consider themselves of a similar class to the speaker, they may be insulted that the speaker thinks themself superior, or (in groups that have strong negative feelings towards the upper class) they may be hostile to someone attempting to enter the upper class.3

As an aside, though, I do not believe that "Using original-language pronunciations is either funny or embarrassing" is "The 'point' that the video makes". Go watch the video again. Notice the stereotypical Italian "finger purse" on "Linguiiiiiiine", or the exaggeration of the rolled-"R" (a stereotypically Spanish sound) on "Conquistadorrrrrr".

Mike's pronunciation here could be seen as offensive4 because it reduces a language to stereotypical traits. His friends are here embarrassed because they guess that other guests might be offended by this exaggeration of stereotypical accents, not because they guess that other guests might take offense at his social climbing or bragging about education.

If you use the actual foreign language pronunciation of a word, in a moderate approximation of the original accent, you're taking a gamble - you might be seen (as Mike hopes to be) as open-minded, humble, and respectful, or you might be seen as a social climber. But if you demonstrate disrespect for a culture by caricaturing its accent - if you "over-pronounce" - you're always an asshole.

1: I'm new to this particular site, so I'm not sure of the answering-etiquette. Apologies if I slipped up!

2: An interesting philosophical tangent, especially when they start being used with different referents: "Nirvana is an English band, but it's a Hindi word

3: There's an alternative case where the speaker attempts to ingratiate themselves with a person of a higher class by using "hypercorrect" language. If the higher-class person does not themself use that pronounciation, it might be seen as gauche or embarrassing to have "tried and failed" to claim class. I suspect, though, that this case is much rarer, and is not what's being portrayed in the video.

4: Note the intentional use of "Could be", not "Is". I'm not going to speak for what's offensive to anyone else, of any culture.

scubbo
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    I am delighted to note that I have just "Um, Actually"'d a question about a video featuring the host of Um, Actually. – scubbo Aug 24 '22 at 01:39
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    This is an excellent frame challenge, and an excellently written answer. I hadn't thought about the fact that there may be an element of claiming class/privilege to approximating a native pronunciation. But I think you're also right that the portrayal in the video of a speaker making stereotypical impressions of foreign speakers is not the same thing as trying to authentically pronounce foreign loanwords in good faith. – Lou Aug 24 '22 at 08:54
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    "Familiarity with foreign languages is a privilege" I doubt that... Half of the world is bilingual and even in the USA (with low rates of bilingual speakers) it is mostly hispanics (who are also generally poorer) that are bilingual. Even in Europe there doesn't seem much correlation with wealth and bilingual ability at all – Matt Aug 24 '22 at 11:27
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    @Matt I think you're right, but I guess what scubbo says applies in the context of the (largely monolingual) English-speaking countries (US, UK, Aus, NZ), where multilingualism is not the cultural default. – Lou Aug 24 '22 at 13:40
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    At the risk of doing all the things that we might be frowning about... Ought "subjective" not be "subjunctive" in "I'm better than you because I employ the Subjective mood 'correctly'? ;) – Joshua Taylor Aug 24 '22 at 16:33
  • This answer mostly addresses over-pronouncing among local speakers. I also think that using it with speakers of the foreign language might have them thinking you're making fun of their accents, rather than trying to be respectful to them. – Barmar Aug 24 '22 at 16:46
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    @JoshuaTaylor You didn't start your comment with "Um, actually". Zero points. – Acccumulation Aug 25 '22 at 00:40
  • It is also worth noting that "trying is un-cool." A person who goes to the effort of pronouncing a loan word according to the rules of its origin language is trying -- and worse, doing so in earnest -- which has become one of the most shameful states of being. – Tom Aug 25 '22 at 02:09
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    @JoshuaTaylor - dang it, I proof-read this post so many times, but you caught an error! Well done :)

    Matt - fair point, but Lou is correct in identifying that I'm speaking from a background in the UK (which might also explain my obsession with viewing everything through the lens of class. You're right that that's not true everywhere. I guess this perspective could be usefully salvaged by restricting only to "using a foreign pronunciation of a language of which the listeners aren't fluent speakers"

     – scubbo Aug 25 '22 at 04:36
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    @Barmar - I think that's an interesting point, which I can't dispute as I'm not a foreign language speaker myself. However, I hope that many if not most foreign language speakers would not pity or laugh if you tried to emulate a word from their language in their native pronunciation. Unless they're French. We can just never win with the French (/s) – Lou Aug 25 '22 at 06:49
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    @Matt I would say that familiarity with a language other than English and Spanish (in particular Mexican Spanish) is seen as somewhat of a privilege in the US (unless you are part of an immigrant community that speaks that language). If you have significant exposure to other languages beyond some basic classes in high school that means you've probably spent time abroad, which is something that only a minority of Americans get to do – Kevin Aug 25 '22 at 22:12
  • This is absurd. First, café (from French) is a very poor example as the word has come into its own in English and no one in English is going to pronounce the French é. Croissant is better. Secondly, "Stigmatizing an honest attempt to use original-language pronunciation can be a reaction against prescriptivism motivated by reverse-classism/anti-elitism.": An honest attempt? You either know it or don't know the pronunciation. So, I say croissant with a t and the supermarket worker does not know that pronunciation, their reference for prescriptivism is that one should say croissant with the t? – Lambie Mar 28 '23 at 14:56
  • cont'd: Because that supermarket worker is motivated by reverse-classism or anti-elitism? What if there no "prescriptivism"? People tend to use foreign loan words as they have heard them. And not due to prescriptivism. – Lambie Mar 28 '23 at 14:58
  • Croissant is, indeed, a better example. Thanks for clarifying that café comes from French.

    As for the rest - "what if there is no prescriptivism?" - what a lovely thought! What if there's no sexism, either? My point is not that prescriptivism necessarily motivates every instance; but rather than it sometimes does, and so someone may interpret original-language pronunciation as indicative of prescriptivism whether it is or not.

     – scubbo Mar 28 '23 at 18:32
  • You say: I'm not familiar enough with other cultures to answer the question but I have a perspective that I haven't seen expressed in the comments or answers. But I say: I speak four languages and have rarely heard such a silly question. All my languages have loanwords and I have never heard of anyone thinking it was snobby to pronounce the word like they do in the original language or not snobby to not do so. – Lambie Dec 07 '23 at 16:07
  • @Lambie - your experience is of course your own, but the mere existence of this video indicates that the CH crew at least think that discomfort at a "native pronouncer" is a widespread-enough phenomenon to be relatable to their audience. You can debate the source of the discomfort (perceived snobbery or something else), but that discomfort must have been observed. – scubbo Dec 08 '23 at 19:24
  • @scubbo The fat guy over exaggerates the pronunciation and the discomfort is more from that than the actual pronunciation, which he mostly gets wrong. If a do not overaspirate saying tapas, most people might not even notice it. – Lambie Dec 08 '23 at 19:30

  • "The fat guy over exaggerates the pronunciation and the discomfort is more from that..." - and do you have a suggestion for why exaggerated-pronunciation would be embarrassing to be associated with, other than the already-provided suggestions of classism or stereotyping?

     – scubbo Dec 09 '23 at 04:17
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The linguistic phenomenon that you are speaking of is in large part due to English spelling conventions being so far off from normal phonetic values for the Latin alphabet, and secondarily is due to a dearth of attention being paid to actual pronunciation in the original language (often, no experience at all with the original language). An English speaker therefore has a greatly reduced probability at guessing at an indigenous pronunciation of a orthographic loan, compared to speakers of other languages (whose Latin-based spelling systems are less confusing and who are afforded greater opportunities to hear pronunciations in the donor language, and to learn from native speakers). The "carry oakie" pronunciation is most widespread at least in the US so there may be some surprise value in a person saying [kaɾaoke] and on some social circles people may feel that a person is "putting on airs" if they pronounce it that way, but it is not generally a stigmatized pronunciation. On the contrary, in my experience the popular pronunciation [fɔu] for Vietnamese phở is more stigmatized than [fʌ] (which is closer to native).

Whether or not a person has a strong view as to what constitutes proper pronunciation in their language is a highly individual matter, and has little to do with loanwords vs. native words. If there is a strong central authority in a society (a king, a ruling class or ethnicity, an academy) you are more likely to get attitude about "incorrect" pronunciation.

user6726
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  • Do you have a reference to support your orthography points? It seems plausible enough, but to me it would seem like many other factors would be more relevant. – Azor Ahai -him- Aug 23 '22 at 23:23
  • @ orthography: If people don't know or don't care about the original pronunciation, they will apply the rules of their own language. Even though modern transliteration is based on English and not on Latin the resulting pronunciation can be far off. This is not only because the English orthography reflects the medieval state of the language (which is also true for French), but the English pronunciation is very "ambiguous", there is no strict one-to-one correlation between a single / a certain group of letter(s) and a certain sound. – Shakesbeer Aug 24 '22 at 21:12
  • IME, people tend to pronounce unfamiliar foreign words as if they were Spanish (at least for the vowels), rather than following English's rather inconsistent conventions. – dan04 Aug 24 '22 at 23:43
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No, it isn't a cross-linguistic phenomenon.

For example in German language, people are expected to use foreign pronunciations for foreign words from English and (less so) French. These languages are seen as "superior", or more precisely, more prestigious than the native German language. Foreign words from other languages are more or less brutally Germanised.

The English and specially English spoken in the USA is adverse against foreign pronunciations is no surprise: The speakers think they are speaking the most prestigious language of the world and belong to the supremate super-power of the day.

Sir Cornflakes
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    A prominent example in German is the pronunciation of the word "Orange", which features a nasal [ã], a sound not found in the rest of German vocabulary but still expected to be used in this one word. – ob-ivan Aug 24 '22 at 13:22
  • That's helpful context, thanks. Other answers have explained a bit more about why this might happen in English speaking contexts, but it's interesting to know it's not universal. – Lou Aug 24 '22 at 13:39
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    @ob-ivan: Well, there are more loan words from French with an [ã], sound, like Engagement or Abonnement, Orange is not the only one. – Sir Cornflakes Aug 24 '22 at 13:51
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    As a German I'd like to add that this highly depends on the region/dialect and the "class" you are talking in/with. With the exception of English, other languages get a variety of treatments, from just "naturally" using the native pronunciation to "I don't even know that this is/was not a German word." Anecdotally I can tell that pronouncing "Orange" natively can result in others making fun of you (I moved to another place where no-one pronounced "Orange" like that), so there can be some stigma involved. – Simon Lehmann Aug 24 '22 at 15:06
  • @Simon By ‘natively’, do you mean /oˈʀaŋə/, rhyming with lange ‘long’? I can imagine that would indeed cause some issues – I can also imagine many speakers may never even have heard such a pronunciation, further adding to the bemusement. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '22 at 17:25
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    Oh please. In the US, we hear English speakers all the time using Spanish pronunciation for words in Spanish, Not everyone does it, but many do. By the way, "supremate" is not a word and your opinion is completely misinformed. Just listen to NPR radio.... – Lambie Aug 24 '22 at 18:38
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    To the "Orange"-question in the German language: The pronunciation depends on the sounds present in the local dialect. For example in Austria people say "orãʃe", while the French pronunciation is "orãʒ". There is no voiced sh [ʒ] in german, but the dialects in question do have the nasal [ã]. A more prominent example would be the word "restaurant", pronounced "restorã" in Austria. "restauraŋ", which is used in parts of Germany (due to lack of the nasal there), horrifies every Austrian. In general german pronunciation will follow the original one as close as the local sound inventory allows. – Shakesbeer Aug 24 '22 at 20:41
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    Related question on pronouncing loanwords on [german.se]. – ˈvʀ̩ʦl̩ˌpʀm̩ft Aug 26 '22 at 07:46
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    I'd say, it depends. Specifically, "USA" is pronounced German ("Ooh Ass Ah"), whereas "CIA" is pronounced English ("See Eye Ay"), as is "Washington" (though perhaps as if it were spelled with "V"). But indeed, we may even have a switch from English-y to French-y pronunciaton in combos such as "Hedge-Fond" – Hagen von Eitzen Aug 26 '22 at 11:17
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    @ob-ivan Orange the fruit "orangje", the colour "orangsh", or the city "orongzh"? – Hagen von Eitzen Aug 26 '22 at 11:21
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Argentinian Spanish native here. Context is everything but as a general rule, yes, it is stigmatized here. I'd only use the original pronunciation of that word if I'm speaking to people who are fluent in that foreign language.

Even then, I'd never say foreign words like delivery (used in the context of food delivered to your door) or jeans with American/English pronunciation in causal speech. It's just unnecessarily pretentious and if it's not then it's likely to be perceived as such.

baka_toroi
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    Thanks for the perspective! It's helpful to know that this occurs in contexts outside of English as well. – Lou Aug 25 '22 at 06:52
  • I think it's funny that it's pretentious to say "jeans" with an American pronunciation since it's such a basic and unpretentious word here. I'm know many Spanish speakers feel the same way about things going the other way, but it's just funny to hear that perspective – Kevin Aug 25 '22 at 22:15
  • @Kevin: It's of course not the word that would pretentious, but the pronunciation of it. I'm having a hard time thinking of any words in north-american English that are borrowed from other languages that don't at least have some air of sophistication, like "croissant", "baguette", or "bruscetta". Although some cafes are pretty modest and it would be pretentious to give it a full French pronunciation. For clothing, closest I can think of is cami / camisole; pretty standard and mundane clothing item but the word is originally French. I see what you're saying though, on the surface it's funny – Peter Cordes Aug 25 '22 at 23:40
  • You say /deliˈβeɾi/ and /xeˈans/ ? – minseong Aug 26 '22 at 00:43
  • @theonlygusti It's /de'liβeɾi/ or even /ðe'liβeɾi/ depending on how casual or slurred the speech is. As for jeans, no, I never heard that. We do a rough approximation of the English pronunciation but since Argentine Spanish (or rather, Rioplatense Spanish, the one spoken in Buenos Aires) lacks the /dʒ/ pronunciation we usually go with /ʃins/ or maybe /ʃi:ns/ with a very high likelyhood of dropping that last /s/. – baka_toroi Aug 29 '22 at 20:07
  • @baka_toroi you are using your phonology's closest approximation of the American/English pronunciation then, with American/English stress patterns. Your final paragraph left a stronger "no attempt at all" impression than that on me. – minseong Aug 29 '22 at 21:33
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    @theonlygusti It's a mixed bag. For some reason tire brands such as Firestone and Fate are pronounced /fiɾes'tone/ and /'fate/. Electric batteries brand Energizer is usually rendered /eneɾ'xiseɾ/. Newer brands and words introduced since the 90s will most definitely be approximated to their American/English pronunciations. – baka_toroi Aug 30 '22 at 20:39
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I'm Italian, I can say that somebody who does not pronounce English loanwords correctly is perceived as uncouth.

The same is true for French words (I've never heard anyone pronouncing the silent "e" in décolleté, crêpe or griffe, or the "t" in croissant) or for German (blitzkrieg, müsli and kitch come to mind).

Spanish poses almost no problem since its pronunciation is rather similar to Italian (tapas, siesta, gazpacho, sombrero).

One starts to sound pretentious with lesser known languages; the usual Italian pronunciation of kamikaze, ikebana or seppuku is definitely wrong, but using the correct Japanese pronounciation will probably be perceived as haughty.

NOTE: English loanwords that entered our vocabulary a few decades ago seem to be an exception. Brand names like Singer (sewing machines), Tide (detergent) or Colgate (toothpaste) are pronounced as if they were Italian words.

Vorbis
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  • This only covers a very narrow definition of "correct" pronunciation. Yes, you won't say "crêpe" with the final silent E, but will you say it with a French R rather than Italian R? If you did the latter, you'd sound way pretentious to me. Same with other examples. Same with using English R in an English word, although I've noticed that after Trump became US president, news media immediately took a liking to pronouncing the name similar to "Chump" and with a very non-Italian vowel. I found it bewildering. When speaking Italian, I pronounce it as I would a hypothetical Italian word "tramp". – LjL Mar 17 '23 at 23:03
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I beg to differ with jk's answer concerning German.

Yes, it's true that German tries to preserve some features of the original pronunciation for loanwords — at least for some languages. There are other features, however, that are consistently not preserved, and if you stick to the original pronunciation too closely, your audience will look irritated or will not understand you at all. Here's a random collection of examples.

English: "Computer" is /kəmˈpjuːtə/ in BrE, /kəmˈpjutɚ/ in AmE, and /kɔmˈpjuːtɐ/ in German. While the /j/ in the second syllable is kept in German, the first vowel is never reduced to /ə/, and the final syllable is pronounced in the same way as the final syllable in "Vater" or "Meter", most likely as /tɐ/ (depending on the speaker's dialect). It's not /tə/, and certainly not /tɚ/, unless you try to imitate an American accent.

Dutch: "Gouda" (cheese) is /ˈɡaʊ̯da/ in German. Note that the diphthong is roughly the same as in Dutch /ˈɣɑu̯daː/, but the initial consonant is not. If you order /ˈɣɑu̯daː/ at a German cheese counter, you will not be understood.

Italian: "Gnocchi" is /ˈnjɔki/ in German, or perhaps /ˈɲɔki/. If you say /ˈgnɔki/ (or even worse /ˈgnɔtʃi/), you will be perceived as uneducated. But if you say /ˈɲɔk.ki/ with a properly geminated /k/ as in Italian, you sound like you're imitating the Italian waiter.

Swedish: Germans are fairly unaware of the fact that Swedish consonants are pronounced differently from their German counterparts. For instance, "Göteborg" (Gothenburg) is /ˈɡøːtəˌbɔʁk/ in German and "Linköping" is /linˈkøːpiŋ/. If you use the proper Swedish pronunciations /jœtɛˈbɔrj/ or /ˈlinɕøːpiŋ/, no German will understand you.

Russian: There are several things that are consistently ignored in Russian loanwords and proper names in German, for instance the stress pattern, the fact that unstressed vowels are reduced in Russian, and the difference between a Russian "hard л" /ɫ/ and a German "l" /l/. Consequently, "Wladimir"/"Владимир" is /ˈvlaːdimɪɐ̯/ in German, and "Boris"/"Борис" is /ˈbo(ː)ʁɪs/. If you say /vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr/, people will look a bit irritated, if you say /bɐˈrʲis/, they will not understand you at all.

Thai: "Bangkok" is /ˈbaŋkɔk/ in German. The original Thai pronunciation /baːŋ˧.kɔːk̚˨˩/ has an unreleased stop at the end, but an unreleased stop is inaudible for Germans. If you pronounce "Bangkok" with an unreleased /k̚/, Germans will not understand what you mean.

The assumption that the original pronunciation of a loanword is generally perceived as correct in German is about as wrong as the assumption that the original grammatical gender of a loanword (say, from French) is perceived as correct in German.

Uwe
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    At the place where I live, /ˈgnɔtʃi/ is the standard Germanisation of Italian gnocchi. There is a restaurant named /pɔrto vɛtʃio/, guess the spelling of the original name. I concur with the other observations. – Sir Cornflakes Aug 29 '22 at 13:54
  • A nice link to Gnotschi, from 2012: https://www.abendblatt.de/hamburg/article108450622/Ein-Tschianti-zu-den-Gnotschi.html – Sir Cornflakes Aug 30 '22 at 08:17
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I think that sometimes native speakers get corrected on their pronunciation of a foreign word, and then they get defensive and say "well no, this is just how we say it. It's how it's pronounced in our dictionaries". I would assume that that is fairly common across cultures.

joel
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  • Some languages/cultures prefer to change the spelling of a word in order to reflect best approximation while keeping their native spelling rules. Others such as Spanish will keep the original spelling and an effort might or might not be produced to say it with the (usually approximated) original pronunciation. Einstein is usually read as-is as /'einstein/ instead of /'ainstain/. – baka_toroi Aug 30 '22 at 20:43
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I wanted to throw my own thoughts into the ring after reading the discussions on this question. In particular, I strongly agree with this comment from @ShadowRanger:

I find that, for Spanish, Americans generally stick to Spanish consonant rules where the sound exists in English, but apply English vowel sounds (which are admittedly quite flexible, so sometimes they get it right by accident). So "jalapeño" honors the Spanish pronunciation of the 'j' and 'ñ', the 'p' already agrees, and the 'l' is close enough. But the 'a's are pronounced by English rules (first as in "cat", second a schwa, where in Spanish they'd both match English "cot"), the 'e' is inconsistent (sometimes as in "pen", sometimes as in "cream"), and only the 'o' matches Spanish.

This has been an observation I've made in England as well. We tend to respect the consonants in loanwords more than the vowels - so long as the consonant is something in our sound inventory or close enough. It's typical for an English speaker to say "genre" with the voiced postalveolar fricative, but probably they would never use the French vowel. Ditto "croissant", as several people in the replies to this question noted. But I've noticed that we struggle with pronouncing the voiceless velar fricative /x/, for example in Loch, Bach, or even names like Khalid. Some might attempt the pronunciation but because it's not in our sound inventory (in England at least, it will be in Scotland,) it's "easier" to fall back on the /k/ sound.

The vowel thing is interesting though. To speculate, I would say that this might be due to sonority - vowels are louder than consonants and so more salient in speech. The difference between /dʒ/ and /ʒ/ in "genre" is slighter compared to the difference between the French and English vowel equivalent /ɑ̃/ and /ɔ/. Using a non-native vowel sound therefore marks the speech as distinctive, and may trigger negative reactions in the vein "Oh, that person is trying to show how educated / fancy they are by using an 'authentic' pronunciation".

Lou
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    I think the most common pronunciation of jalapeño that I hear in the US does not honor the sound of "ñ" even approximately. It's more like "hall-uh-peen-o". – WaterMolecule Aug 25 '22 at 13:19
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In Russian and in Georgian, for example, grammar dictates such a hopeless distortion of the word that authentic pronunciation becomes simply impossible.

For example with a word in plural it is obligatory to add a plural indicating suffix, while in many cases it is impossible to remove the native suffix.

The word "jeans" is, I believe, a good example for Russian. The Russian word is джинсы, which consists of джинс (jeens, although "j" is pronounced as "dzh") and the suffix ы (y, for plural), so it sounds approximately like dzheensy. All this is really hardwired, there is simply no way to pronounce it differently.

მამუკა ჯიბლაძე
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Question: Is pronouncing loanwords according to their "native" pronunciation stigmatised across most cultures and languages?

This is a leading question. The assumption is that all cultures frown on pronunciations that are NOT accurate in the language of origin. This cannot be determined and is not even a valid linguistics question.

Also, stigmatize is not the right word here. A much better term, even though it does not change the fact this is a leading question would be: frowned upon.

Generally, people are stigmatized, not their behaviors.

Finally, no question about pronunciation can be answered "across all cultures". A best one could design a survey in and for a particular language but even then it would not provide an answer for, say, all the French speakers in France.

My conclusion is that this is not a valid linguistics question. All that can be provided are opinions and clichés that people might have in their heads about a particular way of pronouncing a loanword in a particular language.

Lambie
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    The question is asking whether most cultures frown on pronunciations that are accurate in the language of origin or not. That's not an assumption made by OP at all that's literally what OP wants to find out. – minseong Aug 26 '22 at 00:47
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    I think that there is a possibility that this is more pedantic than precise, but for clearness of communication I have edited the "stigmatised" term in the question. I also agree that the question as it stood could not be answered "across all cultures". Really what I was getting at was: I have observed this phenomenon in English-speaking contexts. Does this occur outside of English-speaking contexts, yes or no? And does it occur commonly, or is it more usual in non-English speaking contexts to emulate foreign loanword pronunciation? So thanks for the feedback. – Lou Aug 26 '22 at 09:38
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    @theonlygusti That is inaccurate. Do most people like red balloons? is a leading question. Not leading is: What color balloons do most people like? Non-leading: How do people who speak x in their native country view the pronunciation of loanwords? Still impossible to answer without a survey which still would only be an indicator. – Lambie Aug 26 '22 at 15:08
  • I think this is important point: there is the native pronunciation (as natives pronounce it) and an attempt at native pronunciation, that is how, e.g., an American speaker pronounces a Japanese word. The latter is not necessarily even close to the former, and the listeners are usually not qualified to judge its quality - so it is treated as pretentious. – Roger V. Aug 26 '22 at 16:33
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    @RogerVadim None of this can be measured anyway. – Lambie Aug 27 '22 at 15:31