Pronunciation of 'France'

Is "Brit" an insulting term?
Finally closed. A bit biased in towards a british outlook at the end

>> That's hardly surprising seeing that the USA is very much larger in size than tiny wee Britain, even with the British upgrading to university status of so many technical colleges, colleges of education and many other places of higher education. <<

Even so, it's still disproportionately American. Certainly in the top 50 universities on that list, 37 of them are in America.

>> By academic research and performance, obviously. How do you think? By the quality of the washrooms? <<

That wasn't what I meant. What I meant was that the views of what constitutes a 'good university' of the people who produced this list are inevitably going to influence their list in some way. It is not possible to do such a thing scientifically; according to that list, the top 10 universities in the UK are:

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. London — Imperial College
4. London — University College
5. Edinburgh
6. Manchester
7. Bristol
8. Sheffield
9. London — King's College
10. Nottingham

Compare that to the Times University Guide:

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. London — Imperial College
4. London — School of Economics
5. London — University College
6. Warwick
7. York
8. Bristol
9. Durham
10. Bath

To Uriel -- I still get amazed when reading these kinds of forums that people will sieze on one detail of a lengthy comment, refute it, and appear to miss the whole point of the submission. So, people in whatever portion of your state you've resided in for 33 years pronounce it "pahsta" . . . Did you actually read what I said? I believe there's been a GENERAL trend among Americans since the 1970s toward a supposedly European-sounding "a" regardless of whether it's a European word or some other culture's word. Another example. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell pronounces Iraq to rhyme with "hack." Much-younger officials who held press conferences during Powell's tenure usually said the word in a way that rhymed with "hock."
Am I the only person who has ever noticed this?

Talking of Colin Powell....I assume most Americans pronounce his first name the same way as he apparently does. Nobody in the UK pronounces Colin (a fairly common male name) pronounces it that way.

US: ['COu lin]

UK: ['Col in]

Not so long ago on TV I heard an American contributor to a program on history in India call Gandhi ['Ga:andi] while all the while his British counterpart said ['G@ndi].

As for Iraq...here (UK) it's invariably [I'r@k], even among mega RP Southern English people with their long A's.

And pasta is ['P@sta] all round too. The fun comes with the variations in pronouncing tagliatelle. :-)

I assume that you're not using X-SAMPA, as the pronunciations above are definitely not marked down in such if the pronunciations are to even resemble the ones i'm used to hearing at all of those words. In X-SAMPA, I pronounce those as:

"Colin" : ["k_ho:5I~:n] (but note "Collin" : ["k_ha:5I~:n])
"Gandhi" : ["ga~:ndi]
"Iraq" : [I"r\ak]
"pasta" : ["p_hast@]

I'm the one to make the 200th post. Go me!!

<<To Uriel -- I still get amazed when reading these kinds of forums that people will sieze on one detail of a lengthy comment, refute it, and appear to miss the whole point of the submission. So, people in whatever portion of your state you've resided in for 33 years pronounce it "pahsta" . . . Did you actually read what I said? I believe there's been a GENERAL trend among Americans since the 1970s toward a supposedly European-sounding "a" regardless of whether it's a European word or some other culture's word.>>


I have not resided in NM for 33 years. Where did you get that assumption? I have lived all over the US and elsewhere. And I have never heard "pasta" with a flat A. Where did you get this information that prior to the 1970's Americans pronounced it with one?

Damian: Colin is a fairly uncommon name in the US, and is pronounced however its owner wishes, I suppose. I don't hear it enough to know if there is a preferred pronunciation here.

Thanks, Uriel. As far as I can make out here in the UK the name Colin must have gone out of style as it seems to be mainly older blokes who have that name but whatever.... Colin is always pronounced the same way...Colin to rhyme with bollin (I've just coined a word now....what definition should we give to a bollin? Sounds like a traffic control indicator.....oh, no...that's a bollard). Aye, I reckon parents can choose to pronounce the name Colin the same way as your Colin Powell does....Coe-lin. Even his surname has different pronunciations......the way he pronounces it...the usual way, but some posh English people seem to prefer Po-ell...said phonetically.

I shall try and find time today to check out X-SAMPA.

"The top 500 universities by what standard? And if you're referring to the list which I think you are, the order it gives for the top British universities is rather different from, say, the Times University Guide. And even though Britain may well come second in that list for the most universities in the top 500, the vast majority of them are still American. "

US population is 5 times larger than ours.

Divide the number of US universities in the list by 5 and see what number appears.

>> As for Iraq...here (UK) it's invariably [I'r@k], even among mega RP Southern English people with their long A's.

That's a surprise. Surely a long A (as in "father"). As for Colin, it's a common name throughout the Commonwealth, and nowhere therein would anyone be so crass as to pronounce it as "coal-inn".

Perhaps worse, and even more affected than pronouncing France as "Frahnce" is pronouncing Boulogne as "Ba-loin" and Dordogne as "Dordoin", as many, if not most in the UK seem to do these days.

Although most of my pronunciation agrees with that of what is now termed RP, I find I can't corrupt the French pronunciation to the extent of saying Frahnce and Ba-loin, preferring a shortish A for France, and the slightly Anglicised Boo-lonya and Dor-donya.

I don't think it has anything to do with being black; the spelling of "Colin" would suggest a long O, even if that is not the usual pronunciation in the UK. In contrast, the common name "Collins", with its two L's, is always pronounced with a short O.

"the spelling of "Colin" would suggest a long O"

This has been the fate of many words, not just names. People who have never heard them spoken by someone who knows the correct pronunciation see them on paper and try to pronounce them, get it wrong but mislead those who haven't even seen the word written down...

Speaking of bending over backwards, I don't understand why so many English speakers are switching from 'Koran' to 'Qur'an'. I don't doubt that the apostrophe has some significance when pronouncing the Arabic, but we're not pronouncing Arabic. We're pronouncing English. It seems bizarre in that position in an English word. The two languages don't even use the same alphabet, so why all this attention to reflecting the original Arabic?

Google results:
"Qur'an" 2,160,000
Koran 4,520,000


it is because koran is used in Dutch, german and scandinavian languages

I remember taking a history class where the professor insisted the "correct" spelling was "Qur'an," not "Koran." She implied that "Qur'an" was the original spelling. I wanted to point out to her that since they're both Romanizations neither is still the original. Insisting on one Romanization over another seems silly if you believe one is more "correct."

I spelled it "Koran" on my paper and she didn't mark it.

:D