Here’s a question: how annoying would it be if I went around talking about how I live in “Paree?” Mispronouncing “Paris” is hardened into the language. Not so many people talk about Vèneto, and not everyone writes it with that diacritic.

I admit that pronouncing foreign words in an English fashion is a struggle for me, too. My instincts are to pronounce everything foreign as perfectly as possible. It appeals to my know-it-all-ness, and even to my sense that as a musician, I should have a great ear and be able to say things as I hear the natives say them. But I’ve been training myself to say Roo-en when speaking in English, because I’ve discovered that not only is it kind of irritating to non-Francophones to tell them “I’m thinking about taking a trip up to [ʁwɑ̃] next week,” but that, actually, they won’t even understand what town I’m talking about visiting.

All of which is to say that I don’t think people should be judged based on how they pronounce foreign words, and that maybe the cultural value we put on “proper” pronunciation is misplaced. It may have to do with our post-modern search for authenticity, but that’s a way bigger subject.

Nevertheless, I must say that my favorite BBC-ism is definitely Ni-ker-a-gyoo-a. Takes the dictate to pronounce every vowel in Spanish a little too far…

Regarding “Himalayas”:

I know a well-informed American (he’s lived in India and speaks Bengali) who uses the pronunciation “him-AHL-yahs.”

Nico responds: Yeah, see, this is one of those things where you just check out the IPA. hɪ’mÉ‘lijÉ™. Although I have desi-tastic friends who put the accent other places, too, so who the hell knows.

In Canada, (especially in provinces such as Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick) we hear both French and English everyday, and differences in linguistic pronunciation (including pronouns) are common place.

The ‘incorrect’ syllable emphasis of a French or English word comes down to a mater of cultural representation by the speaker, and it is not taken as a blatant misrepresentation of the language of origin.

However, this wasn’t always the case in Canada. I remember walking around Montreal’s Plateau in the early 1990′s and being yelled at right in the street for speaking French with my obvious English accent. With the French/English clashes in Quebec, it was a tense time. In order to get along, the status quo had to change. Things like linguistic tolerance became paramount, and linguistic preference became synonymous with one’s cultural background. This also included one’s pronunciation, whereby ‘correcting’ it, is generally seen as an act of aggression and linguistic intolerance.

In Canada, expecting everyone to pronounce words the same way, infers the ‘value’ of cultural homogenization, and in a country with two official languages, this has little merit.

I must admit, I sometimes snicker when an English speaker pronounce “Rimbaud” as “Rambo”. But it’s equally endearing to hear a Frenchman say: can “I ear with my hears”.

Is this normal? He did it about eight times, and otherwise had no discernable accent.

Couldn’t Venèto be a reasonable extrapolation from Venezia?

Beethoven is apparently unpronounceable, so the French say something like “Bétove.”

I think the prestige associated with pronouncing words “correctly” – even though we’re still really really far off, what with our diphthongs and wacky r’s – has to do with English’s polyglot nature. We’re used to importing any useful combination of letters we see, and have been since the language was born in like 1100. But that also contributes to the language’s unpredictable variations in pronunciation (how were you supposed to know that that z was really a ts?!)

I really like that koala, though.