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mispronunciation of 'ch'
Why do most English speakers always assume 'ch' is pronounced 'sh' in foreign words?
eg, many times I heard following mistakes: Chernobyl, not Shernobyl Hugo Chavez, not Shavez Che Guevara, not Shay Guevara Augusto Pinochet, not Pinoshay Do people assume all is French?
English speakers just say this. If the word is foreign, let's just assume that it's French and give it a French pronunciation.
Are they really mistakes if saying them incorrectly is the only way people will understand what you mean? I'd call it adaptive verbal communication.
Also, all your examples are names. It reminds me of the all the different pronunciation of 'Van Gogh' i've heard. It's not like non-English speakers never get names 'wrong'. I couldn't possibly count the amount of times i've heard foreign tourists refer to places around here 'incorrectly'. German people seem very good at getting the names right, though.
They will not misunderstand these if pronounced correct. There's no reason to pronounce it wrong. Even news presenters pronounce it wrong.
They actually want to pronounce right, because they make effort to pronounce 'sh' because it is foreign, rather than 'ch' which is the natural pronunciation in English. Lazy people would pronounce as in English and end up correct pronunciation!
I've never heard any of those words with "sh" for "ch" except maybe the city (once)...
I pronounce things as I hear them on TV unless I know better. I'm not out to over-pronounce words of foreign origin around other Americans. I'm "foreign" enough as it is.
<<Augusto Pinochet, not Pinoshay
Do people assume all is French?>> There is nothing wrong with pronouncing Pinochet as "pinoshay" (nor pronouncing Michelle Bachelet, the current Chilean President, as "meeshel bash[e]lay") since that name is originally French and is in keeping with French pronunciation. Btw, in some Spanish dialects 'ch' is realized as /S/, so "Shavez" and "Shay" aren't necessarily incorrect. In fact, you'll often hear Mexicans living in the United States using this pronunciation. Here's a passage from "The Sounds of Spanish" by José Ignacio Hualde (page 152): "Another important dialectal phenomenon is the deaffrication of /ʧ/; that is, the loss of the occlusive element of the affricate, resulting in the fricative [ʃ] (as in English sheep): muchacho [muʃáʃo]. This lenitive development has been attested in a number of separate areas including parts of Andalusia, Northern Mexico (Sonora and Chihuahua), Panama and parts of Chile." |