Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 October 10

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October 10

Italian hard ‘c’ in English

Outraged by Olive Garden's practice of pronouncing bruschetta with /ʃ/, as if it were German, I'm looking for other Italian words containing ch that are used (and not commonly mispronounced) in English. All I've got so far is scherzo. —Tamfang (talk) 05:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Chiaroscuro, gnocchi, macchiato, architrave, zucchini, Machiavelli. Henry^Flower 06:01, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

• gnocchi? Is that like ganoci? —Tamfang (talk) 00:43, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia. Akld guy (talk) 07:04, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

English speakers will happily import any foreign word, and then butcher the pronunciation. Burger King sells croissants, and I'm fairly certain that word is not natively pronounced "crew-sont". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:35, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

That'll be "Boor-ger King", I presume----Ehrenkater (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I think most English English speakers can manage "croissant" better than that (perhaps because we're a bit nearer to France) but we don't usually manage that peculiar French "r" sound. Alansplodge (talk) 21:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

A common pronunciation in the States is something like "kwah-SAHNT". I don't recall ever hearing Bugs's "crew" rendering. --Trovatore (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

In contrast, the Spanish chorizo is often pronounced as if it were Italian, with a hard c at the start instead of /ch/, and /ts/ for the z instead of /th/. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that's "as if it were Italian". In Italian, the "ch" cluster appears only before "i" or e. To get a /k/ sound before any other vowel (or any consonant), you just use "c".

So basically chorizo is not a possible Italian spelling. An Italian who knows it's a loanword will presumably give it the Spanish "ch" sound. If there are any Italians who don't know it's a loanword, I don't know how they'd try to pronounce it. --Trovatore (talk) 16:25, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Who knows, some people might even pronounce it the way they'd say "scioriso": One occasionally encounters the verb scioccare ("to shock") spelled choccare, a pseudo-gallicism (or shoccare for pseudo-anglicism). ---Sluzzelin talk 22:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

• I wouldn't be shocked to learn that cho occurs in archaic or regional usage. —Tamfang (talk) 00:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Category:Lists of English words of Italian origin might be helpful.—Wavelength (talk) 15:51, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Maraschino. --Trovatore (talk) 16:28, 10 October 2015 (UTC) Oh, sorry, I misread — I thought you wanted "commonly mispronounced", but actually you asked for "not commonly mispronounced". --Trovatore (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

• Chianti. —Tamfang (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

• Michelangelo was not from Ischia. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:11, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

• Chicago. μηδείς (talk) 23:10, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Chicago has an Italian origin? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.101.147.43 (talk) 07:17, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
    • No. See Chicago #History. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
      • Nor does the "Ch" represent a /k/ sound, unless Medeis has a very unusual pronunciation. I suspect it may have been a joke. Henry^Flower 05:02, 13 October 2015 (UTC)