Hyperforeignism

A hyperforeignism is a non-standard language form resulting from an unsuccessful attempt to apply the rules of a foreign language to a loan word (for example, the application of the rules of one language to a word borrowed from another) or, occasionally, a word believed to be a loan word. The result reflects "neither the... rules of English nor those of the language from which the word in question comes." For example, "habanero" is sometimes spelled or pronounced with a tilde (habañero), which is not the correct Spanish form from which the English word was borrowed. This error is perhaps influenced by the correct pronunciation of another common pepper with a Spanish-origin name, jalapeño.

In an extreme form, this can also apply to words that have a foreign origin but have since been assimilated to follow the general rules or even words that are not foreign at all but are misperceived as foreign.

English

In English, hyperforeignisms are seen in loan words from many different languages.

Afrikaans word

In the Afrikaans, the letter combination sch is pronounced [sk] (as in 'school'). However, most English speakers pronounce it as [ʃ] ("sh") following the rules for German, in words such as Rooibosch and veldschoen.

Arabic words

Some Arabic names that originally contain the letter ḥa (ح [ħ]), like Ahmad أحمد [ˈæħmæd], are often pronounced /ˈɑːkmæd/ AHK-mad, or sometimes /ˈɑːxmæd/ AHKH-mad by people acquainted with the sound kh [x], in an attempt to pronounce it correctly.

Chinese words

Some English speakers pronounce Beijing with /ʒ/, likely due to confusion with the Russian letter Zhe (Ж) by foreign news correspondents transplanted from Moscow to Beijing. In fact, the Standard Chinese sound represented by ⟨j⟩ in Pinyin (/tɕ/) is an affricate similar to the "g" in "gin". The same applies to Mahjong.

French words

Non-native French speakers may erroneously omit the last consonants in words like Vichyssoise /z/, in the chess term en prise, and in prix fixe. Similarly, in coup de grâce, some speakers may omit the final consonant /s/, although it is pronounced in French [ku də ɡʁas].

The word cadre is sometimes pronounced /ˈkɑːdreɪ/ in English, as though it were of Spanish origin. In its French original, the final "e" is silent [kɑdʁ], whereas it is a schwa in common English pronunciations. Similarly, French-derived forte (used to mean "strength" in English as in "not my forte") with silent final "e" is pronounced /ˈfɔːrteɪ/, by confusion with the Italian musical term of the same spelling, but meaning "loud", which does pronounce the final "e". The double-hyper foreignism with a stressed final syllable, /fɔːrˈteɪ/ is also heard.

The "queen of the hyperforeignisms" is the word lingerie. Speakers of American English typically pronounce this /lɑːnʒərˈreɪ/, excessively depressing the first vowel of the French [lɛ̃ʒʁi] to sound more like a "typical" French nasal vowel, and rhyming the final syllable with English ray, by analogy with the many French loanwords ending in -é, -er, -et and -ez. Similarly, the French spelling repartie (pronounced /rəpɑːrˈtiː/, "rejoinder") was changed to English spelling repartee, "banter", giving rise to a hyperforeign /rəpɑːrˈteɪ/.

Those who know French but who are unfamiliar with the many exceptions connected with proper nouns may omit the final z or s in pronouncing names such as Saint-Saëns, Duras, Boulez, and Berlioz. The final letter in these words is pronounced as /s/ for the first two words and /z/ for the last two words. There are numerous other examples that do not adhere to the standard rules of French pronunciation.

Legal English is replete with words derived from Norman French, which for a long time was the language of the courts in England and Wales. The correct pronunciation of Norman French is often closer to a natural contemporary English reading than to modern French: the attempt to pronounce these phrases as if they were modern French could therefore be considered to be a hyperforeignism. (It is also an anachronism. For example, the clerk's summons Oyez! ("Attention!") should have a final consonant, but whether it is /z/ or /ts/ is uncertain.

The Norman French language furthermore gave Southern England some ancient family names that were once associated with the aristocracy, which should be given their natural English pronunciation. A good example is Lestrange which is sometimes mistakenly pronounced with its natural and contemporaneous French inflection.

"Claret" is often thought of as a French loanword and mispronounced /klæˈreɪ/, losing the "t". In fact it is an Anglicised (and genericised) version of the original French clairet, and the "t" should thus be pronounced, with the stress on the first syllable: /ˈklærɪt/.

Indian-language words

The j in the name of the Taj Mahal or raj is often rendered /ʒ/, but a closer approximation to the Hindi sound is /dʒ/. (j in most other Roman-alphabet spellings of words associated with languages of India is best approximated /dʒ/.)

Another example is the pronunciation of Punjab as /ˈpʊndʒɑːb/; a closer approximation to the original is /ˈpʌndʒɑːb/ . The letter u in this case represents the Hindi neutral vowel, with a sound similar to that of the u in English cut.

In many words pertaining to Indian religion, an originally short vowel is lengthened in some English pronunciations. Examples include i in Sikh and Shiva and, in American English, u in Buddha and Buddhist. Thus, for example, Sikh may be pronounced to sound like "seek", although a sound like "sick" would be closer to the original in most English dialects and would comport better with standard English reading rules. (Caveat: the vowel quality may be affected by the vowel length.)

Italian words

The "g" in Adagio may be realized as /ʒ/, even though the Italian original has an affricate /dʒ/.

The word bruschetta, particularly in American English is commonly rendered as /bruːˈʃɛtə/ with an English 'sh' sound, probably as a result of Americans' familiarity with words and surnames of German origin containing 'sch', which would be pronounced this way. An approximation that is more reflective of Italian phonology would be /bruːˈskɛtə/ and the authentic pronunciation in Italian would be [brusˈketta].

A similar problem afflicts the brand name Freschetta, which is routinely pronounced with the 'sh' sound in commercials. The type of cherry, maraschino, the Italian astronomer's name Schiaparelli and the surname Schiavo are also liable to this mispronunciation. A famous popular culture example of this error is the Canadian band Rush's song "Red Barchetta", in which Geddy Lee pronounces barˈtʃɛtə instead of Italian barˈketta.

A similar effect can arise from confusion between Italian and Spanish. For example, Shakespeare spells the name of the principal male character in The Taming of the Shrew as "Petruchio", intended as a phonetic representation of Italian Petruccio: this should be pronounced /peˈtruːtʃo/ in accordance with the Spanish and English sound of "ch". The common pronunciation /peˈtruːkijo/, which assumes that Shakespeare's spelling is genuinely Italian, is therefore a hyperforeignism: in Italian there is no name "Petruchio" so spelled.

A barista is a worker in a coffee shop: Americans will often substitute "baristo" for a male barista, when in fact "barista" is invariable in gender in Italian and Spanish (as are other words ending in the suffix -ista).

The word "latte" (milk), as in "caffè latte", is often misspelled as latté or lattè, despite having no accent on latte in Italian as it has the stress on the "a".

Mongol words

Many English speakers pronounce "Genghis Khan" as /ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ with a hard initial g as in "get", in accordance with the usual transliteration systems for Asian languages. In fact, the original Mongolian name was something like Tchinggis (preserved in Russian as Чингиз Chingiz). The spelling "Genghis" was first used by Marco Polo, an Italian writing in French. A pronunciation such as /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/, with a soft g as in "gentle" in accordance with the medieval pronunciation of both those languages, would therefore be closer to Marco Polo's intention as well as to the original name.

Spanish words

The digraph ch of Spanish is generally realized /tʃ/, similarly to English. Hyperforeign realizations of many Spanish loanwords or proper names may substitute other sounds. Examples include a French-style [ʃ] in the surnames Chávez and Pinochet (which may also lose the final "t", a problem also affecting the French word trebuchet) or a German-influenced [x] or Greek-influenced [k] in machismo. (There is some natural occurrence of [x] and [ç] in Spanish dialects, but their occurrence in Standard Spanish is usually hyperforeign.)

Often, the tilde on the Spanish ñ is lost in English orthography, occasionally with comic effect, leaving English speakers who encounter words in writing to guess where it should be added back in, unintentionally substituting or inventing words like "empañada" for "empanada", which changes the meaning in Spanish from "breaded" to "fogged up" and perhaps even "diapered"; or in cases where the tilde is not added back to words to which it belongs, creating inappropriate sentences such as "Tiene dos anos," meaning "They have two anuses," instead of "Tiene dos años," which means "They are two years old."

Polish

Foreign hypercorrections are also evident in Polish. For example, the Spanish name Quixote becomes Kichot in Polish, preserving the modern Spanish pronunciation (Polish ch = Spanish x = [x]); but this is often pronounced with [ʂ], as in French words containing ch. (Incidentally the French spelling Quichotte reflects an older Spanish pronunciation of x as /ʃ/.)

Russian

In Russian, many early loanwords are pronounced as native Russian words with full palatalization. Hyperforeignism occurs when some speakers pronounce these early loanwords without palatization. For example: тема ("theme") -> тэма, текст ("text") -> тэкст, музей ("museum") -> музэй, газета ("gazette") -> газэта and эффект ("effect") -> эффэкт.

Foreign names have been transliterated inconsistently and then pronounced as native words. For example: "Texas" is transliterated Техас resulting in a pronunciation with a velar fricative (as in the Spanish Tejas), while "Mexico", which actually has a velar fricative, is transliterated Мексика (as in English). "Chicago" is transliterated Чикаго, with an affricate initial consonant and a neutered final vowel: /tʃiˈkɑːɡə/ rather than the original /ʃɨˈkɑːɡoʊ/.

Swedish

An example of hyperforeignism in Swedish is the common use of "chevré" in "chevré[ost]" for "chèvre cheese", which is pronounced quite different from the original French "chèvre" (possibly by, false analogy with the Swedish "grevé" cheese, grevéost).

Similarly "Entrecôte", which also can often be spelled "Entrecoté", or "Entrêcotè", or some other combination of ^ and ` or ´. More often than not it is pronounced without the ending "t" sound.

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. Now, it is not considered a loan word, but it might have been pronounced in this odd way to sound more foreign.

Hyperforeignism for comic effect

The silent "t" in "Report" in the title of the parody pundit show The Colbert Report is a hyperforeignism used for comedic effect. It is a play on the host's surname, Colbert (pronounced /koʊlˈbɛər/), which is of French origin (although the actor's family has no recent French ancestry).

In the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, Richard Bucket pronounces his surname like the water vessel, but his snobbish wife Hyacinth insists on /buːˈkeɪ/ (like bouquet), à la française. Series creator Roy Clarke said he got the inspiration for this character trait after meeting someone with the surname "Bottom" who insisted it was pronounced /boʊˈtoʊm/ boh-TOHM.

Similarly, some people jokingly give retailer Target the pseudo-French pronunciation /tɑːrˈʒeɪ/ tar-ZHAY, as though it were an upscale boutique.

See also

• Hypercorrection