May 02, 2007, 00:35
Myth JelliesMy bologna has a first name...
Bologna--Baloney
Just why has the pronunciation of the sausage deviated so far from the pronunciation of the city it was named after?
May 02, 2007, 08:05
zmježdOff hand, I'd say it's the
palatal nasal, the weird (to anglophone eyes) orthography -
gn-, and the tendency to reduce unstressed vowels (i.e., the first
o) to schwa. It also helps that almost nobody spells
bologna the sausage as
Bologna the city. Also, a
geminate palatal nasal is just too foreign an articulation for non-Italian speakers.
It's also funny that a dish of spaghetti with the eponymous sauce (or
ragù) is called
bolognese by almost everybody else but those in the States. Folks have been having trouble with the pronunciation of this northern Italian city for a long while: the Romans called it
Bononia. The first
n went through a process of
dissimilation to become Modern Italian
l.
May 05, 2007, 11:40
<Geoffrey Sanders>Isn't the Italian
gn the same sound as the Spanish Ñ? That's becoming common in the USA.
May 05, 2007, 12:24
zmježd Isn't the Italian gn the same sound as the Spanish Ñ?Yes, they're both palatal nasals.
That's becoming common in the USA.Might be, but most US speakers pronounce
canyon with an /nj/ instead of an /ɲ/: /'kænjən/ ~ /ka'ɲɔn/.