Talk:Hyperforeignism

Article organization

This article has been completely mucked up. It is divided by language, but makes no distinction between mispronunciations by English speakers of words derived from a given foreign language and mispronunciations by speakers of that language. It needs a radical sorting out; and was rather better in its earlier form when it was part of Hypercorrection. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 11:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

You may be right -- go ahead and change it if you think it will improve the article. You could also create a draft version in a user subpage if you want to do extensive edits or get feedback before making changes. Augurar (talk) 20:31, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done (I think). I've separated the English from the Russian, Polish, and Swedish sections, and left the sub-sections within English by source-language. This is essentially the form the article as of 25 November 2011, but my edits (again, I think) have preserved additions and changes within those sub-sections. This is not an endorsement of those additions, which mostly I did not review. I still think the article is badly sourced and in need of additional clean-up. Cnilep (talk) 07:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments on Swedish Pronunciation

"French bureau, meaning desk, is usually pronounced /ˈbyːr.ɔ/ in Swedish, with a strong accent on the first syllable, although this is not a common way to accentuate nouns in Swedish" - This doesn't seem right. If I recall correctly, native Swedish nouns are normally stressed on the first syllable, while loanwords from French are normally pronounced on the final syllable or near-abouts. I think this needs either clarification, or might be a mistake. A native speaker might help enlighten the situation though. Ceigered (talk) 14:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely right, Swedish words are stressed on the first vowel. The few words that work otherwise have an accent on the last vowel. Take "kaffe" versus "kafé" or "café" - the former being coffee, and the latter two meaning cafe (if this isn't obvious). The vowels are stressed either the first (default), or per the accent. Another example would be "ide" versus "idé" - the former is where bears hibernate, the latter is an idea. It gets harder at more advanced levels, where the exact same spelling can be delivered subtly differently - "tomten" can mean either a type of elf/Santa Claus or a specific plot of land. 76.97.240.138 (talk) 15:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC) krigsmakten

hypercorrection in Dutch

The Swedish mispronunciation of 'entrecôte' without the final /t/ sound is also common in the Netherlands, especially in pretentious restaurants, and people who pronounce it properly are often 'corrected'. Belgian Dutch-speakers (who are far more familiar with French) generally pronounce the word correctly, and make fun of their northern neighbours' hypercorrect 'entre-KOH'. Another common error in the Netherlands (but probably also elsewhere) is 'tequilla' for 'tequila' - having misspelled the word in the first place, Dutch-speakers then show off their 'knowledge' of Spanish by pronouncing the 'll' as in 'paella', and again 'correct' people who make it rhyme with 'Sheila' (just as in Spanish). Other common Dutch errors are the omission of the final /s/ sound in '(Louis) de Funès (the name is originally Spanish, and like most French proper names in -ès has an audible 's') and in the Swiss place name 'Davos' (the name is Romanche, not French, so the 's' should again be audible). All this has a lot to do with Dutch-speakers' conviction that they, and only they, are good at foreign languages! Another common Dutch error is to stress the first syllable of 'record' in 'record-knop' (the 'record button' on sound equipment), since they are usually unaware that the verb and the noun are pronounced differently - not exactly hypercorrection, but a related type of error. Perhaps there should be a separate section on Dutch in this article.213.127.210.95 (talk) 15:48, 27 July 2015 (UTC) Oops, my own error in saying 'Davos' is Romanche - the Romanche name is 'Tavau', and 'Davos' (pronounced with a German 'v' sound, i.e. /f/) is the local German name. But in any case it isn't French, so my general comment stands!213.127.210.95 (talk) 16:02, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Linking /ʒ/ in Beijing to Russian letter Zhe (Ж) seems farfetched.

There are no /ʒ/ or /dʒ/ sounds in Russian version of "Beijing" since it's not (Бейджин/Beijing) or (Бейжин/Beizhing) but (Пекин/Pekin). As you can see theese are literally different words. Maybe my incompetence in linguistics is to blame for my confusion, but in this case the connection between "Beijing" and Russian letter Zhe (Ж) should be explained more clearly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.167.39.46 (talk) 11:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

In fact this whole section is spurious. If the IPA symbol there is a "K" sound, and you want to get into why people say "Peking," then sure, but the "j" in Beijing is not supposed to sound like a soft "g." Not in 普通话 standard Chinese. Beijingers' speech itself is the model for standard Chinese, and in Beijing they pronounce it with more of a"dz" sound. It can be hard to differentiate it from the "z" in the Chinese Pinyin romanization system at times, but it definitely does not sound like a soft "g." Pinyin's "zh" sounds more like that. What makes a man turn neutral? (talk) 19:13, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm thinking this is moot, as it's more than 18 months old, and the Beijing mention makes no mention of Russian influence on the mispronunciation, but I'd wager it has more to do with English speakers' familiarity with French "j" being a "zh" sound, than the Russian "Ж" at all. Pronouncing a foreign /dʒ/ as a /ʒ/ is a classic hyperforeignization because /dʒ/ is normal in English and /ʒ/ is relatively foreign. JesseRafe (talk) 19:57, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Pinochet

The surname of the late Chilean dictator Agosto Pinochet was French in origin. Pbrower2a (talk) 01:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Accent on Latté

It's my understanding that the accent on latté is put there to mark that you pronounce the e, versus the e being silent. --Necrㅎ Шea mö 18:09, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

"Acute accents are sometimes added to loanwords where a final e is not silent, for example, maté from Spanish mate, the Maldivian capital Malé, saké, and Pokémon from the Japanese compound for pocket monster, the last three from languages which do not use the Roman alphabet, and where transcriptions do not normally use acute accents." - Acute accent --Necrㅎ Шea mö 18:11, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

There is no such use of the acute in English. Do you write "recipé"? It is mere hyperforeignism. Correctrix (talk) 00:14, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

That's just false. One doesn't write recipé but one does résumé, as in the other examples given above. JesseRafe (talk) 04:27, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

There's some confusion here. It's one thing to use an acute in transliterating from a non-Roman alphabet. It's another to perpetuate an acute that was already present in the original language (as in résumé). It is a third to adopt a word from a Roman-alphabet language such as French and Spanish and add an acute that wasn't there. It is only the third example that counts as hyperforeignism; and it remains so regardless of the phonetic purpose or usefulness of the addition. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:31, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments on Afrikaans Pronunciation

Given spellings of "Rooibosch" and "veldschoen" do not exist in Afrikaans. Correct spellings are "Rooibos" and "veldskoen". The "sch" letter combination is pronounced equivalently to its German counterpart, as in the surname "Bosch". This section is thus completely inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.221.46.130 (talk) 13:37, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Dubious tag removed. How those words are spelled in Afrikaans is irrelevant, they're frequently spelled as the article states in multiple English sources and a borrowing from Afrikaans, maybe borrowed at an earlier time with a different spelling, maybe the frequent misspelling is itself a hyperforeignism, the fact remains you can simply google these spellings and get many hits and from credible sources (newspapers, journals, fiction prose, etc.). JesseRafe (talk) 13:59, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The account is a bit condensed. The spellings "bosch" (for bush) and "veldtschoen" are Dutch: Afrikaans has simplified them to reflect the pronunciation. The surname "Bosch" is German. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 13:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Parmesan

"The word parmesan, though it denotes an Italian cheese, derives its spelling from French and should therefore be pronounced /ˈpɑːrməzɑːn/".

Final -an in French is not pronounced /ɑːn/, but rather /ɑ̃/, and unstressed English vowels tend to become /ə/, so the proposed pronunciation is not correct. — 91.238.123.116 (talk) 12:42, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. The point is not that the word is French, but that English derives it by way of French, so that there is no reason to try to pronounce it as in Italian. Similarly we say "Rome" and "Milan" rather than "Roma" and "Milano", following medieval French, but that doesn't mean we should pronounce them with a French accent. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 13:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

/ˈpɑːrməzɑːn/ is a hyperforeignism too. It is pronounced /pɑːmə'zæn/ in English. Correctrix (talk) 00:18, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Correctrix, based on your two contributions on this Talk page I'm not sure you understand the subject matter. How is /ˈpɑːrməzɑːn/ a hyperforeignism given the definition used in this article? JesseRafe (talk) 04:29, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

NPOV

Under Wikipedia's WP:NPOV policy, Wikipedia adopts an impartial tone: "Wikipedia describes disputes. Wikipedia does not engage in disputes.". Describing certain pronunciations as "mispronunciations" or "incorrect" is a clear violation of this policy, unless these claims are sourced and attributed to the source rather than to Wikipedia (e.g. According to XXX Pronunciation Guide, pronouncing the final S in "Paris" is incorrect and the sign of an ignoramus).

I'm restoring the edit that removed the POV: please discuss here before restoring. Grover cleveland (talk) 14:00, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

The fact that these are the wrong pronunciation is the whole point of the phenomenon described. It is not NPOV to call something which is objectively wrong wrong. Or a pronunciation a mispronunciation if that's what that is. That is objective and verified by the rules of the language in discussion. You are misapplying a rule that doesn't even apply to this situation. You're so wrong, you're not even wrong. Unbelievable. Please read this article, rather than look for things to get riled up on just so you can be an NPOV crusader. JesseRafe (talk) 14:27, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciations are not "objectively wrong" or "objectively right". Within English, there are multiple national pronunciation standards (e.g. General American, Received Pronunciation), which are mutually inconsistent for some words. If you have reliable sources saying that certain pronunciations fail to conform to certain standards, then by all means add those claims to the article, attributing them to the sources. If you can't find any such sources, then maybe that is a good indication that these claims do not belong in the article. The fact that an English-speaker's pronunciation of an French loanword may not resemble its French pronunciation does not make it "wrong". For example, we all pronounce "Paris" with a final "s", even though it is not pronounced in French: that doesn't make us all "wrong". Grover cleveland (talk) 16:32, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

You're completely off-point and making a strawman argument. Again, please read the article. Is that too much to ask? You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue and seem to think that this is an article about prescriptivists correcting people with simple pronunciation errors. You're doing wikipedia a disservice by harping on an issue you evidently cannot or choose not to comprehend. I will abstain from reverting your frivolous, wanton and self-serving edits until other editors weigh in. JesseRafe (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey. So, first of all, I'd like to gently suggest a less combative and personal tone. Please comment on content, not on the contributor. Statements such as you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue, and you evidently cannot or choose not to comprehend are all talking about me, not about the content I've contributed. Wikipedia has found through experience that such comments are generally not conducive to working together.

That said, nothing in this comment thread seems to give any reasons why we should bypass the usual Wikipedia policies of Attribution, NPOV, and Verifiability for statements about pronunciations, especially those claiming that certain pronunciations are "wrong", "incorrect", etc. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

It is an objective statement that you do have a fundamental misunderstanding. That is unambiguously what is happening here. Unless you are being purposefully obtuse in your effort to white knight some pet issue of yours where it doesn't belong. I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm saying you haven't even read the article, have you? This is NOT a list of "mispronunciations" or a list of "foreign words" or anything like that. Do you even know what hyperforeignization is? Why are you here? Do you misunderstand the term "hypercorrection" as well and think that applies to any and all instances of "correction"? Please, seriously, read the article and let informed people make these decisions. JesseRafe (talk) 19:14, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that a more civil tone is called for here, and that if there's a claim to be made it should be backed up. To that degree, I support Grover cleveland. However, I must disagree that there are no objectively right or wrong pronunciations. To pronounce "pronunciation" as though it were spelled "slorg" is objectively incorrect, for example. A less-drastic example is the mispronunciation of "nuclear" as "nook-you-ler;" there is no basis for the latter pronunciation (popularity does not confer accuracy).

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 15:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

In summary, there's a difference between "incorrect" in the sense of "not accepted in educated speech" and "incorrect" in the sense of "originally founded on a factual error". A hyperforeignism, like a back-formation or a folk etymology, remains a hyperforeignism (or whatever), even if the resulting pronunciation becomes universally accepted over the course of time. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 17:00, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree, Septegram, my tone was off and misinterpreted because I felt I was talking to someone who was not only condescending, but also I am sure has never even read the article or considered the phenomenon. As there is no basis for some of these pronunciations, as in your examples, this article should say that.

Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) is more articulate than me on the type of superficial incorrect I am referring to here. The fact that a dictionary may say "forte" with two syllables is correct in English does not change the fact that it stemmed from a wrong application of French pronunciation.

Grover Cleveland took the non-prescriptivist angle too far and thus the article is nonsense. It must be said that a certain word is pronounced in the wrong manner for this to even be a subject, without it it does not exist. If you remove the fact that speakers are pronouncing words of a language according to the phonology of a different (also foreign) language or the perceived (and incorrect) phonotactics of the right language, then all the descriptions herein make no sense. This article is for the regular reader, not someone who already knows what it's about. I am not a prescriptivist, but you do not have to be to say that "slorg" is wrong, that's an objective truth, not a prescriptive sentiment, and certainly not one that violates NPOV. JesseRafe (talk) 18:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I think the point is that issues are getting confused because there are different kinds of potential error involved here, and cases where precisely the same usage would be incorrect in one instance but not in another, depending on the goals of the speaker. (This, I should note, is implicit or even explicit in lots of comments above, but I think it's worth making as clear as possible.) Let me explain with bruschetta as an example. If someone sees the word bruschetta on a menu and pronounces it more or less as if it were a German word (e.g., /brʊ'ʃɜtə/), because they think that's where the word comes from and that the word should be pronounced as in German, they are making an error as to the origin of the word, but are correct as to how German is pronounced. If the same person sees the word, recognises it as Italian in origin and thinks it should be pronounced as in Italian, but pronounces it /brʊ'ʃɜtə/, then they are indeed making an error about Italian, but are correct about the origin of the word. If, on the other hand, the same person sees the word and aims to pronounce it as other English speakers typically pronounce it, and says /brʊ'ʃɜtə/ or /brə'ʃɜtə/, they are no making no error at all. (Nor would they be in error if they pronounced it /brə'skɜtə/, which is also common in English.) In other words, hyperforeignisms often start as errors, but rapidly become conventional in the relevant speech community. Similarly, pronouncing nuclear /'njukjələr/ is only incorrect if you're aiming for the standard pronunciation; if you're aiming to pronounce it as your buddies do, which is entirely reasonable, then that may well be precisely the right pronunciation (and /'njukliər/ in that context might reasonably be described as wrong). In other words, I think we should avoid using terms like "incorrect" and "error" here, except where it's clear that that's what's going on. Garik (talk) 18:46, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Again, that's getting too far into the prescriptivist/descriptivist debate. The point here is that a resulting pronunciation may or may not be "wrong" but that that fact is not relevant for the purposes of this article, which is about how hyperforeignisms come into being. Their later acceptance or otherwise is beside the point. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 10:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Quoth Garik

pronouncing nuclear /'njukjələr/ is only incorrect if you're aiming for the standard pronunciation; if you're aiming
to pronounce it as your buddies do, which is entirely reasonable, then that may well be precisely the right pronunciation
(and /'njukliər/ in that context might reasonably be described as wrong).

Mispronouncing "nuclear" because your buddies mispronounce it so simply means you're joining them in their error. It is still an incorrect pronunciation, even if your goal is to "be one with your buds" rather than "help them stop sounding like idiots."

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 17:31, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

No. I understand why you think so, but that's not the case. Language is a set of conventions, which vary synchronically and change diachronically. If my linguistic behaviour is at odds with my goal, I'm making an error; if my behaviour and goals match up, it's not an error (except inasmuch as I might be said to have chosen poor goals). The idea that there's a right and wrong in language as distinct from a varying set of conventions is very widely held, including by highly intelligent and educated people (it's one of the hurdles that has to be got over in introductory linguistics courses, especially sociolinguistics), and is scientifically interesting in its own right, but it's not accurate. This is, however, leading away from the question of how best to improve the article, so I'd better stop here. (I direct anyone interested further in the question to the book Language Myths by Laurie Bower and Peter Trudgill, or similar books by other linguists.) Garik (talk) 18:10, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I will continue to disagree, but I believe this is a philosophical question and, furthermore, not on-point. I'm sure we could have a lovely fight about it elsewhere, but I'm equally sure we both have better things to do with our time {grin}.

Best regards,

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 21:08, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Let's just be clear about this, any use of mispronounce or mispronunciation is prescriptivist. This seems to be the crux of what the dispute is and I suspect that JesseRafe in particular may need convincing as to how this article would have noteworthiness without the ability to make prescriptivist judgments. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it if you didn't wantonly and intentionally miscategorize my intentions and understandings. You yourself on the Project page suggested changing ises to oughts, and I did it here following your lead and you are now changing your tune undoing those edits. As Septegram has said (And yes, Garik, I can cite authors, too. See John L. Austin) there are things that are wrong (among all the ways of being wrong, whether in belief, attribution, execution, or external independent reality), and these spades should be called spades. The fact that virtually every English speaker pronounces "forte" as two syllables doesn't change the fact that it is a mispronunciation. If there were no such things as mispronunciations, this article and phenomenon would not exist. How is that debatable? JesseRafe (talk) 19:51, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Miscategorize? You just said in this very thread that "It must be said that a certain word is pronounced in the wrong manner for this to even be a subject, without it it does not exist." This sentiment is echoed in this thread as well:

"If this weren't the case there would be no phenomenon and thus no article"

"If not, why not delete the page?"

"It must be said that a certain word is pronounced in the wrong manner for this to even be a subject, without it it does not exist."

Your prickly reaction may have to do more with my characterization of your stance as prescriptivist, though I'm not sure about that because you are becoming more antagonistic than communicative. However, you seem to have accepted this stance (that is, one of judgments) as prescriptivist, as you characterize Grover Cleveland's edits as "non-prescriptivist."

I think a rational, commonsense reading of what you have said would lead to the same interpretation. On top of all this, I even hedged my statement by saying "I suspect" so as not to too forcefully put words in your mouth if I misread the situation. To call this "wanton" and "intentional" miscategorization without acknowledging your own contribution to this supposed error speaks strongly of a combative attitude that you would do well to cease immediately. I also recommend making another careful read through WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. You won't convince anyone by impugning their character.

Finally, I must direct you to reread my earlier comments where I mentioned oughts vs. is. I said:

Thus, instead of saying "the term is French and ought be pronounced X but is instead pronounced Y." the better way to word this would be that the term, coming from French, would suggest a pronunciation of X. Instead, it is pronounced Y, suggesting an origin from Italian. Do you see the difference? I have changed "ought" to "is" and thereby removed prescriptivist (and therefore inherently POV) language while retaining the same information.

To read this as a recommendation that you restore the oughts is a gross error. I hesitate to say that this misreading was intentional, since I can't fully rule out negligently poor reading comprehension. Still, because your subsequent restoration of these oughts was done with a clear lack of consensus, as reflected in this talk page discussion, I'm not sure what you could be missing as far as how to handle editing conflicts or how to properly gain consensus. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:42, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Clearly I skimmed (and so did you) because I responded saying I would take your "ought" suggestion and you responded to that, so you must have known that was my misreading of your intention. "Ought" means "probable or should" as well as "must". Clearly I did not intend for the "must" reading. "Ought" is significantly more flexible than "is" which is rigid and existentially allows for nothing else. Please extend your own good faith, as I quickly read your Project Talk and thought your suggestion was that "ought" be incorporated in place of "is" as a suitable compromise. Hence my plain English reading of my edit summary "following Aeusoes1 restoring more examples undone, changing modal verbs to "ought"s" which could not be read in any other way than my misinterpretation of you suggesting "ought" is stronger than "is", when I thought that was the better NPOV verb choice as I thought (and still think) of "ought" as weaker than "is". My comment on you miscategorizing me as a prescriptivist is still spot on because that is a miscategorization. How you could, with I presume a straight face, lament my calling this a miscategorization while at the same time insist that mispronunciations aren't mispronunciations is impressive. Do you posit that no one can ever be wrong because that would make you a prescriptivist? JesseRafe (talk) 21:12, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't really sure what you meant until your above comment. I did not believe that you could have taken what I said, given the context and everything else I and others said, to mean that it would be okay to re-add prescriptivist language. Even your edit summary just says "following Aeusoes1" which I took to mean that you were restoring what you thought was the right language while also incorporating some of my edits.

I think Garik summed up the ways a pronunciation can be "wrong" pretty well. It all depends on context. I still maintain that your stance is prescriptivist. At this point, I'm not even sure if you know what that means. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:04, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Removed material on US v UK pronunciations

I've removed the following material as unsourced opinion:

American English speakers are particularly likely to use low back vowels when /æ/ would be a better approximation. For example, Vivaldi is pronounced [viˈvaldi] in Italian. Because American speakers tend to pronounce /ɑː/ as [ɒ] or [ɔ] before /l/, their pronunciation [vəˈvɔldi] does not sound as near as the typical British pronunciation of [vəˈvældi]. Another example of this comes from Persian, where the name Hamid is pronounced /ˌhɑːˈmiːd/ by American English speakers but [hæˈmid] in Persian.

Grover cleveland (talk) 02:40, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Hyperforeignisms or incorrect foreignisms?

Doesn't the English section have a spectrum from true hyperforeignisms to foreign words whose pronunciation is merely incorrect (rather than being more foreign-sounding than it actually is), with some in between? Mezzo and dacha struck me as the most clearcut cases in which what should be the pronunciation is foreign in a different way than the common pronunciation (no less foreign-sounding, just different). Adagio, bruschetta and Raj/Taj could also be put in that class; only the fact that the common pronunciations employ softer consonants than the more faithful pronunciations make them fit at all with the concept of hyperforeignisms. I haven't deleted any of those examples because I'm new to this discussion, but I'm curious what other people here think. Jbening (talk) 02:56, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I think you do have some points, however I would note two things: One, for instance reading a J and pronouncing it with the (usually) French-inspired ʒ instead of a regular English dʒ is always going to be a hyperforeignism. Beijing and Taj Mahal should be inherently easy for English speakers to pronounce correctly since it fits our native phonology, but the fact that Anglophones go out of their way to try to pronounce them but in fact do it incorrectly is what makes it by definition a hyperforeignization. The second point, is, yes, many of these words are on this list due to incorrect pronunciation of the rules, however be careful using the word "incorrect" as some editors have misunderstood the principle of descriptivism and would insist two plus two is five if you find someone who thinks so. JesseRafe (talk) 14:24, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

I see your point on Beijing and Taj Mahal. I actually tend towards descriptivism myself, but I didn't mean to take a stance on it in the way I worded my query. My take on the overall theme of the article is that, even if one is a descriptivist, there is still value in identifying what psychological tendencies cause pronunciations to change, and hyperforeignism strikes me as just such a tendency. When I referred in my query to, "what should be the pronunciation," I meant what would be the pronunciation if English-speaking users of the words pronounced them the same way that native speakers of the language from which the words were drawn do. But I don't mean to hijack my own discussion here--what I'm interested in input on is whether some of the instances given in the English section should be trimmed to limit the list only to cases where the mispronunciation came from hyperforeignism rather than incorrectly applying the rules of one foreign-sounding pronunciation scheme to a word derived from a different language or era (as in the case of Norman French words). I would be inclined to trim mezzo and dacha, and I would lean towards maybe trimming adagio and bruschetta too. Anyone else? Jbening (talk) 18:26, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

As seen, you already asked this question and nobody joined you. The reasons the Italian pronunciation are categorized as hyperforeignisms are already given. Please find consensus to remove it. "Pizza" is a foreign word and most Anglophones know its foreign pronunciation. Mispronouncing it would be "pee-za" which one only hears in jest from a native English-speaker. Italian pronounces "mezzo" with a voiced affricate, but Anglophones seeing that word mis-apply a foreign pronunciation (that of the /ts/ in "pizza"), which marks this a hyperforeignism and correctly identified in the article. A "simple mispronunciation" as you claim in your edit summaries would be to treat these letters as regular English orthography, as in "mezzanine" which nobody claims is a hyperforeignism but the "zz" is pronounced like an English word, as in "buzz". JesseRafe (talk) 17:37, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. A mispronunciation is a move towards the normal English pronunciation of a letter. A hyperforeignism is a move away from the normal English pronunciation, under the impression that less English must mean more authentic. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 20:40, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

No one joined me, but no one effectively countered my argument against mezzo, until I went ahead and made the change (twice), and only then did you come out with the pizza example, which makes the case. This would have been so much easier if you or someone else had offered that in January, in which case the article could have been improved back then, rather than waiting for me finally to get around to acting in the article space itself. The reason Wikipedia articles have talk pages is so this sort of debate can happen without changes to the article being made and reverted and made and reverted. And Sir Myles, my understanding of hyperforeignisms (from the Janda and Jacobs article) is not just that they are random pronunciation moves further from English, but that they are misapplication of pronunciation rules either from the language of the loan-word or from another language. Without the widely used example of pizza as an explanation for why English speakers would mispronounce mezzo in that way rather than any other possible way, the mezzo example wasn't clearly a hyperforeignism. Maybe both of you knew that pizza was the basis for the rule, but believe it or not that hadn't occurred to me, which means it may well not occur to some other readers of the article. So I've added it to the article.Jbening (talk) 13:20, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

As I said in an edit summary there is no onus on anyone else to respond to a Talk Page question, and as you can see I did respond last winter. You chose not to heed it and restated yourself, and I chose not to engage further for it seemed fruitless. But Talk Pages are not why most editors are on Wikipedia, but for published public-facing content, i.e. the articles. If you change those in a way inaccurate, I or another editor will change it back, regardless of whether they first answered some question on the Talk page -- it's not about you, it's about the encyclopedia project. Also, don't act like this is some secret that was kept from you: in the article, on this talk page, and in my edit summaries the case was made without the pizza example. In fact, I'd say that words like "mezzo" and "mezzanine" are the exemption and "pizza" is the rule, not just because it's endemic in English in its Italian pronunciation, but as a general rule of Italian loanwords: "mozzarella", "piazza", "terrazza", "paparazzi" are all very common Italian-to-English words with the double z pronounced in both languages as /ts/. JesseRafe (talk) 14:04, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

This argument is rapidly becoming silly, but since we're having fun here... No onus, but it's good professional practice, and it often saves headaches in the long run. Anyone who's watching an article page is also watching the talk page, and there's no point ignoring issues that could later lead to errant changes in the article (as they did here). Yes--you replied, and I respect you for that, but you didn't really speak to my point about mezzo--certainly not nearly as well as you did yesterday at 17:37. I've clarified the mezzo example in the article precisely because without an example of the implied pronunciation rule, the case was not effectively made for people who haven't already thought through the situation as much as you have. The fact that I was wrong was merely asserted--correctly I see now--but without being backed up as you did so well yesterday at 17:37.Jbening (talk) 21:19, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Sch

Not a hyperforeignism. See here. It's just a matter of whether the word is Greek (and presumably originally a chi) or German in origin, but once it's no longer spelled in italics, the case is made that it's been adopted as English. SCHool and SCHedule and SCHeme, but SCHlep and SCHmaltz and SCHnapps. Yiddishisms might be more rare in Commonwealth countries than North American English, but over the past 6-7 decades they are no longer ethno-linguistic or regional varieties, but basic and accepted standard English. For instance, New Yorkers of all ethnicities would ask for a SCHmear of cream cheese on a bagel without a thought about it as that's just the word for it. JesseRafe (talk) 15:32, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I mean, this is a page with presumably many readers familiar with linguistics - do we call ə a /skwa/ \ /skva/? Or what about a schnauzer? That's not strictly a borrowing nor is it a proper noun, and certainly less arguable for being a regional preference than "schedule" or "schmuck"/"schlep"/"schtick". Is "schmooze" not English-English enough? Ever hear a non-erudite threat to be punched in the schnoz? That's not foreignizing the word by not saying "sknoz", I just don't see the argument that those that think "bruschetta" or "maraschino" are mispronouncing this out of a mistaken belief that the "sch" as /ʃ/ is foreign rather than an alternative.JesseRafe (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Russian

The given examples of hyperforeignisms in Russian are obsolete. Maybe in 1950s some old people would speak like that, but, as of 2000s, you won't hear such pronunciation even from 80-year-old intellectuals. 128.72.116.212 (talk) 14:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Punjab

was sometimes pronounced with a "u" instead of "a" (meaning the first vocal). I am using here the German pronounciation of these vocals. Stephphie (talk) 12:25, 14 February 2024 (UTC)