this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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But that's how c is pronounced in castillian, no? What's pretentious about it?
Pronouncing things as they would be in the language they're actually in is sometimes a faux pas in American culture, I've learned
And sometimes not doing it is. Versailles? Frenchify it unless you're talking abouta small town in Kentucky. Paris? Pronounce it the same whether it's the one in France or in Texas. Milan? Honestly no clue and I live here (America, not italy)
Yeah, it's weird. Sometimes people think it's pretentious and sometimes people think you're an idiot, whether you do it correctly or not. Like all rules with the English language, it's a case-by-case issue. If anyone tells you a rule to remember it, it's likely wrong more often than it's correct.
Let's be fair: doing things the correct way, or just being slightly educated, is often a faux pas in this wasteland pretending to be a civilization.
The cultural backlash comes not from 'pronouncing things correctly makes you sound educated' but because people that do this are adopting an accent for one singular word, and that is often perceived as them attempting to imply some connection to that group/culture that they do not have.
Americans, white Americans especially, have essentially no cultural heritage to draw on. It's why we latch onto things like a grandparent being from Ireland and thence go around calling ourselves Irish-American, or the confederate stans. People with a rich cultural history are generally viewed as extremely interesting, too, so when another american adopts characteristics from a culture they have no real connection with, it's perceived as a deeply tacky attempt to gain social clout. Its akin to being presented with a lesser form of weaboo.
(to be fair, this does happen with the perception of educated people too. "Use real words" and all that, so you're not really wrong just a bit wide of the mark on the particulars)
What do you mean, "white Americans have no cultural heritage"? Your culture runs the planet and has been a going concern for several centuries across hundreds of millions of people. We are in twenty twenty five, good sir. AD. Place got colonized in the sixteenth century. Half of Europe was in a completely different country back then, even discounting all the American history that goes before that.
And yeah, it's weird that you latch on to foreign ancestry as a substitute. I'd joke about it, but I'm here getting all pissy about the US equivalent, so it'd be hypocritical, I suppose.
Not OP, but maybe it's better phrased as "white Americans have a limited shared cultural heritage."
Waves of immigration make it hard to tell what of that 5 centuries is actually shared. It's also viewed as tacky to try and lay claim to the bit before your ancestors arrived.
If your ancestors were Irish and Italian immigrants from around 1850, going off about the Mayflower can be viewed as similar putting on airs
It's our national Mythology, we're a land of migrants and refugees. People have been coming to this land for 500 years, yeah that's a long time compared to our perspective, but there are traditions and cultures in Europe that predate even knowing about the existence of other land in another hemisphere by an additional 1000 years.
And the culture you describe as dominant over the world while yes is predominantly white, is just unchecked capitalism and neoliberalism and a product of whoever controls the largest military and acts as the economic measuring stick to the rest of the world and that if any other nation were to unseat the US as the dominant economic and militant force, then their oligarch's culture would dominate the planet.
Yeah, that's your culture. I mean, time to own it.
For one thing, the rest of us out here don't make that much of a distinction between different US subcultures. Trump is American culture, Oprah is American culture. They're all pretty much the same thing.
For another, have some accountability. You guys did this, and yet you all insist it was not you you and you all feel so much more connected to wherever else. No. Stop it. Own it or change it.
Also, as a side point, man, do Americans love to exoticize how old everywhere else is. Yeah, sure, there are a bunch of medieval castles around and a few cultural remnants in traditions, but by and large most European folklore is rooted in some 18th/19th century crap, just like in the US. Europeans aren't out there having Saturnalia parties.
I thought they drew from the varied backgrounds of the people that came over there? That's a shitload of heritage
Let's not put them on the pedal stool
I mean, I get it to an extent. I'm much more in favor of linguistic descriptivism rather than prescriptivism, so I acknowledge that terms and pronunciations can develop over time and are not wrong.
If someone pronounces "Beijing" in English with a softened J/G sound (like "beige") and someone else corrects them with "Oh do you mean bei-JING", truthfully neither are wrong. The correct pronunciation is whatever people understand and accept.
On the other hand, suggesting that there is a single correct/more authentic pronunciation (particularly in cases where it may not even conform to standard English phonemes) veers into prescriptivism and has problematic connotations.
Hm, but reacting negatively to someone pronouncing it, for lack of a better term, the original way IS presciptivism. This isn't about someone who pronounces a Spanish word the Spanish way criticizing someone who pronounces it the English way, but the other way around.
Only if you are not a native speaker of that language, or always? Am I supposed to imitate how Americans botch the names of German car manufacturers like Porsche or Volkswagen if I ever go on vacation there?
In my experience, you're exempt if it's from your native language. Unless they can't tell your native language from your accent (people can tell I'm not a native speaker of English, but they can't tell what my native language is). British are similar.
But if you pronounce faux pas wrong, it's also faux pas
Fowks pass!
Funny video about pronouncing individual words in an accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKGoVefhtMQ
probably that he's not from there. absent other information, his lisp would then indicate that he is imitating the accent in order to sound more cultured. like someone from the us midwest saying "have you been to mehico?"
Barcelona kinda has an extra layer of this too, because Catalan does pronounce "Barcelona" with an S sound rather than an unvoiced TH
Someone should make a silly comic about it
That's fine, I intend to aggressively say "Los An-heles" and "Ari-tho-nah" from now on, see how the anglophones deal with using a normal accent to say their names.
I mean, I get it, it sounds weird when people say "Los Anyeles" or "London" when speaking Spanish, too. But... you know, if the spelling is the same I don't see the problem using the way it's actually meant to be said.
I've gotten enough weird looks for ordering a "BuRRi-toh" in anglo speaking countries to be annoyed by this. And don't get me started with how Americans have chosen to pronounce "Los Gatos". If you're going to steal our word you at least could give us the deference of not mocking us for saying it correctly.
Now, if the anglophone in question is out there calling it "Barna" you know they're a poser.
That makes me feel upset.
This drove the point home for me. If a Spanish-speaker says "London", it just sounds completely wrong. For those wondering, it's pronounced "Londres" in Spanish.
When my dad is trying to joke about it he'll call it "Londón", and I'm weirdly fine with that.
i feel like the wider point got missed there.
saying "barcelona" with a faked spanish accent is the same as saying "berlin" with a faked german one. it's weird, and it makes you took pretentious. bar th elona and ibi th a are just common versions because a lot of people know about them.
now, some people can't help it. they might be german, for example. that's different, and the comic is saying we shouldn't judge for that, and we shouldn't assume someone is trying to sound clever just because they pronounce a word differently.
I really disagree honestly. I think at least attempting yo match local pronunciation, at least when there's no translated name available for the language you're speaking, is just respectful to the people there. I have no issues with someone saying berlin the english way, but I'll always appreciate the attempt to pronounce it german. Ane this goes moreso for places where the typical english pronunciation is just completely off (such as english speakers silencing trailing 'e's and such).
if you are attempting to communicate with locals, sure. if not, you just make yourself harder to understand.
~~It's the opposite (as far as I could find). Pronouncing "c" similar to "th" is only done in Spanish in Spain. In Catalan (as well as Latin/South American Spanish) all pronounce it like "s".~~
Nevermind, I just can't read. You wrote Castilian, not Catalan.
Castilian Spanish is the dominant dialect of Spanish in Spain.
Edit: A helpful map:
And that's the point, I believe. Catalan is not a dialect of Spanish.
What's pretentious about it is that you're talking in English, so you should use the English place name. The purpose of communication is to be understood by the other person. If you use a non-standard pronunciation, even if it's the name as the locals there pronounce it.
So, to communicate effectively to another English speaker in English you shouldn't be saying "Munchen" you should be saying Munich. You should be saying Prague, not Praha. Vienna, not Wien.
Choosing to say the name of a place "like the natives do" might be seen as pretentious because instead of trying to communicate effectively, you're attempting to seem smart or cultured.
For me is a matter of respect, I try to pronounce place names just as I try to pronounce names. If I say them wrong I feel like I'm disrespecting the locals.
If that makes me pretentious I'll be a petty bitch and mispronounce the names of the ones calling me so. Bastards.
So, you have more respect for the people who live in a city, who are not part of the conversation, than you do for your conversational partner? That's weird, dude.
The english Th sounds different from the spanish C. Source: spaniard.
It's similar though.