Thailand or Thighland? Dinesh D'Douza sets us straight.
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Trump mispronounces Thailand as "Thighland" pic.twitter.com/PgTRnHpAA8
— The Recount (@therecount) August 6, 2020
This is actually the correct pronunciation. Most Americans say it wrong. Thailand is pronounced phonetically. It’s “Thighland,” not “Tai-land.” https://t.co/kiQI7FveEM
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 6, 2020
I’m highly amused to see supposedly sophisticated media types snickering at @realdonaldtrump for saying “Thighland.” These faux-sophisticates don’t realize Trump’s way of saying it is right. “Tai-land” is the crude lingo of people who have never been to “Thighland”
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 7, 2020
Let me clarify. I’m not saying “Thighland” is how it is said in the Thai language. The French say “Paree” but that’s not how it is pronounced in English. “Thighland,” not “Tai-land,” is how English speakers around the world say it
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 7, 2020
Boris Johnson begs to differ (and to be obnoxious), here (starting at 0:13).
Nevertheless, Dinesh will, I assume, be sending letters of correction to the editors of the Oxford Dictionary of English, the Collins English Dictionary, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, and the MacMillan Dictionary. Also to the editors of the OED, which, while lacking an entry for Thailand, does include one for Thai (albeit behind a paywall).
Update (and another one after that)
In England, Australia and India it is pronounced “Thighland” and guess who invented the English language?
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 7, 2020
And from the replies to that last tweet, a few expressions of cautious skepticism:
https://twitter.com/markmcan/status/1291580145350967297
https://twitter.com/JEarlCleveland/status/1291587358693834753?s=20
https://twitter.com/Keith28761064/status/1291587598041747457?s=20
https://twitter.com/toddulus/status/1291588652816936961?s=20
https://twitter.com/veggie_mama/status/1291582066790809602?s=20
Updating the update:
HOLD UP. This wouldn’t be a video of Dinesh D’Souza @DineshDSouza pronouncing Thailand like every other English speaker pronounces it, would it? https://t.co/Ly3ew0b564 pic.twitter.com/cQnJIR61kv
— Ariel Cohen-Goldberg (@arielmc_g) August 7, 2020
Don Monroe said,
August 6, 2020 @ 10:45 pm
Actually, Trump corrects it himself right away when he repeats it. But I imagine D'Souza has a sophisticated linguistic explanation for why it's pronounced thigh-land on first usage and tai-land on subsequent usages.
Bloix said,
August 6, 2020 @ 10:49 pm
This is not "silliness." This is what happens in an absolute dictatorship. Thai is pronounced thigh, Thai has always been pronounced thigh. Believing ridiculous things is required and the more ridiculous the belief the more one's loyalty is demonstrated. Most of us can't really imagine it but D'Souza wishes for it ardently every moment of every day.
Neal Goldfarb said,
August 6, 2020 @ 11:41 pm
Good point. I've removed the "Silliness" tag.
Thomas Hutcheson said,
August 6, 2020 @ 10:52 pm
"Th," either the voiced or unvoiced fricative. is so odd among languages that its always a good guess that it represents an aspirated "t"
Saminsiam said,
August 6, 2020 @ 11:57 pm
Didn't anybody catch the reference to "The Hangover II" and Zack Galifianakis' speech at the wedding?
Thomas Rees said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:00 am
Thomas Hutcheson:
No, sorry, that’s /θɒməs/! I can see why you’d be interested in “th”.
orthographistry said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:08 am
Is D’Souza just using the digraph as a crude representation of a voiceless aspirated /t/?
Y said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:33 am
I'm stumped. Who did "invent the English language"?
Did they then shout "Eureka", having previously invented the Greek language?
Keith said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:50 am
I can't believe that any native speaker of English, or anybody that has studied it seriously, can genuinely believe that Thailand begins with the consonant θ.
Not immediately recognizing the name of Dinesh D'Souza, I thought he might be a comedian, so I went looking for information about him and found this in his Wikipedia article:
Matthew Cutler said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:57 am
So here’s a perhaps overly charitable hypothesis to explain this:
I’ve noticed that Indian English speakers often substitute /tʰ/ in place of /θ/, in many cases perhaps due to them believing that it would be too difficult for them to learn to pronounce /θ/. Maybe some of them consider these two phonemes to not be importantly different, and maybe even have a hard time distinguishing them, somewhat similarly to how English speakers learning Mandarin often have a hard time learning the difference between /t͡ɕ/ and /ʈ͡ʂ/. (It’s hard for me as an English speaker to imagine not being able to distinguish between /tʰ/ and /θ/, but it is often surprising to see the extent to which speakers of different languages or dialects have different problems distinguishing between phonemes.)
To me It seems likely that Dinesh D’Souza learned the pronunciation of Thailand from Indian English speakers, and formed the false belief that the correct pronunciation in English used /θ/ but that /tʰ/ was the closest he could get. He then heard several American English speakers pronouncing it with unaspirated /t/, and thought they were pronouncing it incorrectly (in the video of D’Souza pronouncing Thailand he himself seems to pronounce it with /t/, not /tʰ/, perhaps he has taught himself to use /t/ in American English despite believing this to be technically incorrect), and as one of the tweets states he thinks that English speakers elsewhere pronounce it differently.
Then he heard Trump pronounce it with /θ/, and saw people criticizing him for it, and posted these tweets. Perhaps this is the time when he will finally learn that in fact the standard English pronunciation uses /t/.
Bathrobe said,
August 7, 2020 @ 3:08 am
I'm curious whether the pronunciation 'Thigh-land' is common in D'Souza's native India? If so, he might be projecting this pronunciation onto standard English. (I've never heard him speak so I have no idea what his phonology is like.)
Bathrobe said,
August 7, 2020 @ 3:10 am
My apologies, he does speak in the video. His pronunciation sounds quite standard. His assertion is a mystery to me.
DI said,
August 7, 2020 @ 3:54 am
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."
Orwell, 1984
Tom Dawkes said,
August 7, 2020 @ 4:18 am
I notice that it is also fairly common to pronounce 'Thomas' and 'Anthony' with /θ/, though the standard pronunciation is with /t/. (And 'Anthony' is a false etymology probably on the model of Greek 'anthos, whereas the Latin form is 'Antonius'.
David Morris said,
August 7, 2020 @ 4:18 am
Thank goodness he didn't try to pronounce Phuket.
Vanya said,
August 7, 2020 @ 4:37 am
I notice that it is also fairly common to pronounce 'Thomas' and 'Anthony' with /θ/
Anθony yes, probably the default pronunciation in the US. But in over 50 years living in a variety of English speaking countries I can honestly say I have never heard a single instance of "θomas".
Mark Liberman said,
August 7, 2020 @ 5:40 am
FWIW, the OED gives these (UK and US) pronunciations for Thai:
vadati said,
August 7, 2020 @ 6:00 am
In response to D'Souza's claim, it's also worth noting that /θ/ does not exist in the phonemic inventory of Thai. The closest thing is in fact /tʰ/, which is realised as [tʰ] and even present in the Thai word for 'Thai', ไทย, realised as [tʰaj˧] (Wiktionary).
James said,
August 7, 2020 @ 7:34 am
Trump pardoned D'Souza a couple of months ago. Campaign law conviction. I think that was the first criminal Trump freed — now, of course, he's freeing much bigger criminals.
Maybe this is part of the deal? Trump gets D'Souza out of prison, and D'Souza has to join the parade of ludicrous defense of the president's gaffes?
Andrew Usher said,
August 7, 2020 @ 7:47 am
Bizarre indeed. The standard English pronunciation has /t/, and even Trump knows that. Just why is somewhat mysterious since it is anglicised to use the suffix '-land' (with Boris Johnson pronounced with an unreduced vowel but I always thought was schwa as with all other such disyllables) but not touch the 'th' which gets made into /θ/ in so many other words.
k_over_hbarc at yahoo dot com
Krittika said,
August 7, 2020 @ 8:01 am
Matthew Cutler, I think you are right. I am an Indian English speaker and have been pronouncing it "Thigh"- land until today – and everyone around me does, too ! I don't think /θ/ exists in Hindi or Bengali. So, when we Romanize Indo-Aryan languages into English scripts, we tend to use the group "th" to represent the sound of the "th" in "thigh", (or something close to this letter in Hindi: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%A4%A5) – this probably leads to this issue.
Rodger C said,
August 7, 2020 @ 8:42 am
I haven't heard "Thighland" since the US Army, half a century ago. My fellow GIs who'd been to SE Asia pronounced it this way, but I took it to be a pun on the country's sexual opportunities, though I suspect most of them didn't get the joke. A sign, I suspect, of the circles Mr. Trump has moved in.
Jerry Friedman said,
August 7, 2020 @ 8:45 am
The Lapland one was good.
Tom Dawkes: I'd go father than Vanya and say "Anthony" with /θ/ is the only pronunciation I've ever heard in the U.S., and I think people using /t/ would get mocked here.
Andrew Usher: For reasons I can't explain, I pronounce "Thailand" with an unreduced vowel in the second syllable, unlike all the other -land placenames I can think of.
MattF said,
August 7, 2020 @ 8:59 am
Given a choice between “Donald Trump mispronounced something” and “The Genius of Queens is infallible” D’Souza took the only possible option.
Rose Eneri said,
August 7, 2020 @ 9:29 am
Why do we spell Thailand with a th in the first place, especially if /θ/ does not exist in the phonemic inventory of Thai, as vadati said above. And why do they spell Anthony with a th in England?
vadati said,
August 7, 2020 @ 10:07 am
@Rose Eneri, I presume that was used as an orthographic representation of Thai /tʰ/ (as it has a three-way distinction between voiceless stops, voiceless aspirated stops and voiced stops) and then was mistaken as representing English /θ/ instead.
As an interesting side note following from @Tom Dawkes' comment on how Anthony is spelled with a due to a false etymological link, the Classical Greek sound represented by was in fact also realised as a voicless aspirated stop [tʰ], and was only prpnounced [θ] later on in the history of Greek. Latin writers often (though not always) transliterated Greek as , which would presumably have been pronounced in the Grrek way. Over time this probably changed to a fricative [θ] in line with contemporary changes in Greek, or relative to the phonemic inventories of the various languages which -containing words entered.
vadati said,
August 7, 2020 @ 10:11 am
Some of the graphemes didn't show up for some reason. In short, θ was Latinised as 'th', which came to represent the sound [θ] as opposed to its original [tʰ].
Philip Taylor said,
August 7, 2020 @ 10:25 am
I'm with Jerry Friedman here — a clear, unreduced, "a" vowel in the second element of "Thailand". I won't even bother to comment on the /θ/ stupidity. Reduced vowel in England, Scotland, Netherlands, Finland (but unreduced in "Finlandia"), Greenland, and probably most if not all other "-land" country names, apart (oddly) from "Lapland".
C said,
August 7, 2020 @ 10:41 am
His latest claims include:
'Most Europeans say “Ew-rope,” while most Americans say “Yo-rup.”'
https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1291753647152533504
I've lived in the UK all my life and travelled in Your-'p, but never heard Ew-rope.
Ellen K. said,
August 7, 2020 @ 11:47 am
Colloquial pronunciation depictions like "yer-up" (mine for Europe) are problematic as it is. Add in being from India and having different perceptions of sounds than average American. And then a right-wing pro-Trump bias. His Europe pronunciations are very strange. Seems more like a depiction of a French pronunciation (of the word in French) and a non-rhotic pronunciation of "Europe".
Michael Watts said,
August 7, 2020 @ 12:40 pm
My thoughts:
Obligatory /t/ in Thomas and obligatory /θ/ in Anthony. Tony has /t/.
My pronunciation of "Europe" is exactly homophonous with "you're up"; sometimes I will say "you're up" and get the jocular response "Asia". (The vowel in the first syllable is reduced.)
For the -land suffix, definitely reduced in England / Ireland / Scotland / Holland / Iceland. Not reduced in Thailand. I'm not sure about Greenland.
Also not reduced in the (fictional and almost never mentioned) Sarasaland.
I would actually agree that a hypothetical American pronouncing Thailand with unaspirated [t] was pronouncing it incorrectly. Unaspirated [t] is generally reserved for very weak /t/ such as the onset of the particle "to". I find it pretty unlikely that D'Souza ever heard an American English speaker pronouncing "Thailand" with unaspirated [t] as opposed to aspirated [tʰ].
Krittika has provided some support for the theory that D'Souza just didn't understand what anyone, including himself, was talking about:
At least, I have a hard time interpreting this except as a claim that "thigh" itself doesn't begin with [θ].
Frans said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:30 pm
I've never understood why anyone who can't pronounce [θ] would opt for [t] over [f]. (Okay, obviously it's related to spelling, but…)
Frans said,
August 7, 2020 @ 1:31 pm
PS That's a general remark unrelated to Thailand. ;)
Philip Taylor said,
August 7, 2020 @ 2:01 pm
Primarily for Michael Watts :
My thoughts:
Obligatory /t/ in Thomas, Anthony and Tony. Thelma has /θ/, as does Thucydides.
Y said,
August 7, 2020 @ 2:25 pm
Mark Twain writes the American pronunciation of Europe as "Yurrup". Paul Theroux writes it as "Yerp".
Rodger C said,
August 7, 2020 @ 3:29 pm
Well, D'Souza at any rate is simply a fool and always has been. He's the American right's token POC, and he's too naive to realize that this is the only reason they keep him around in spite of his silly pronouncements.
Michael Watts said,
August 7, 2020 @ 3:51 pm
I don't think it's related to spelling. (Followup question: why does [tʰ] become [θ] over time? That can't be related to spelling.)
But the question is really interesting of how a language model trained on one language (for example, a Russian speaker who can correctly classify Russian sounds) assigns raw sounds to phonemes (for example, by reanalyzing "timothy" as "timofei").
I know that Mandarin speakers process English /θ/ as Mandarin /s/ [which is more or less identical to English /s/]. It's not just that they can't produce [θ] — they also can't hear the difference. I taught someone to produce a correct [θ] who immediately overgeneralized to novel English words like "thingle".
But I'm told that Cantonese speakers process English /θ/ as a Cantonese /f/! /s/ is present in Cantonese and /f/ is present in Mandarin; this has to be a difference in the boundary between /s/ and /f/ in Mandarin vs Cantonese.
It also makes me very curious what someone who was raised bilingual in Mandarin and Cantonese would hear English /θ/ as. (Cantonese speakers learn Mandarin in school. But as far as I know — and this information may be seriously out of date — they learn it with a thick Cantonese accent. I had a tutor who didn't know the difference between Mandarin words with n- and Mandarin words with l-, despite having a clear grasp of the difference in English.)
Daniel Tse said,
August 7, 2020 @ 5:34 pm
@Michael Watts
Correct! HK Cantonese speakers render English words with /θ/ as [f]. Since [v] doesn't exist in the Cantonese phonetic inventory, though, /ð/ is rendered as [d] though.
It reminds me of how the regular reflex of Greek /θ/ in Russian is often [f] and not a dental.
Ken said,
August 7, 2020 @ 7:03 pm
orthographistry: D'Souza writes "Thighland", so I doubt he's using "th" for /tʰ/. Besides, he's defending the Trump mispronunciation, and that's clearly /θ/.
AntC said,
August 7, 2020 @ 7:06 pm
(Speaking as an 'Anthony', and a Brit …)
And why do they spell Anthony with a th in England?
As @Tom explained, it's a false etymology. There've been a few famous Brits: Anthony Eden (Prime Minister); Antony Armstrong-Jones (Queen's brother-in-law).
"Anthony" with /θ/ is the only pronunciation I've ever heard in the U.S., and I think people using /t/ would get mocked here.
People using /θ/ in Britain/Australia/NZ would get mocked as 'stuck-up' lah-di-dah. I've always pronounced myself with /t/, except when needing a 'spelling pronunciation' for officialdom.
David Morris said,
August 7, 2020 @ 7:12 pm
In my experience, there are two spellings of basically the same name: Anthony and Antony. The former is always pronounced with /θ/ and the latter with /t/, and they will tell you if you're pronouncing it wrong. But many Anthonys become Tony anyway.
Ben Zimmer said,
August 7, 2020 @ 10:48 pm
My own contribution to the thread…
Stuart Luppescu said,
August 7, 2020 @ 11:55 pm
I always thought that the th in romanization of Indian languages was to distinguish between dental (th) and retroflex (t) apical stops. It drives me crazy when (American) people pronounce a name like Krishnamurthy with an interdental fricative, instead of with a dental stop. I assumed that the first sound in Thai was just a plain dental stop; I never thought the h indicated aspiration. Live and learn.
Michael Watts said,
August 8, 2020 @ 12:03 am
Well, this sounds like it makes sense, but I see a small problem and a big problem.
Small: Krittika also writes "thighland", but doesn't appear to understand that "thigh" is pronounced with [θ]. The same could be true of Dinesh D'Souza.
Big: It seems very clear that D'Souza didn't actually listen to the clip of Trump, because in the clip, Trump corrects himself immediately after saying "thighland and Vietnam". The immediate admission that "thighland" was a mistake tends to undermine potential defenses. So it doesn't appear to be relevant how Trump pronounced anything — D'Souza probably didn't hear it.
(And as a secondary argument in the same category, we haven't definitively established that D'Souza is capable of hearing the difference between /θ/ and /t/ – Matthew Cutler started this topic with a theory that he can't. This theory would also make it irrelevant that Trump pronounced a clear [θ])
John Swindle said,
August 8, 2020 @ 12:59 am
Readers will recall that in 2014 Pope Francis pronounced the Italian word "caso" as "cazzo" in a weekly address and immediately corrected himself. People laughed, but no one insisted his original pronunciation was the correct one.
Matthew Cutler said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:28 am
It turns out that I was misunderstanding some phonemes myself in my above comment. In particular I had forgotten that I still have basically no understanding of the difference between aspirated and unaspirated consonants despite all my efforts to learn about it. This seems to be another example of native speakers of a particular language (in my case [British] English) often not being able to distinguish between pairs of phonemes that are generally treated as synonymous in that language (in my case /t/ and /tʰ/).
My basic point, that I stand by, is that it seems like Indian English speakers are interpreting the relevant phonemes significantly differently than most other English speakers. Some Indian names are spelled with a “th” when written in the Latin alphabet, and are pronounced with a phoneme that I incorrectly stated was /tʰ/ and might actually be /ʈʰ/. I suspect (as Krittika basically confirms) that they think of this phoneme as homophonous with /θ/ and distinct from /tʰ/ or /t/, and that they think of English words like “thigh” as beginning with this /θ/~/ʈʰ/ phoneme. It seems that some of them, like D’Souza, believe that “Thailand” is a word like that.
Rachael Churchill said,
August 8, 2020 @ 3:02 am
I (British) only recently learned that Americans pronounce Anthony with /θ/. For about 35 years I'd only ever heard it with /t/. So I would expect someone using /θ/in the UK to be mocked not for being stuck-up but just for mispronouncing it, in the same way as if they said Thomas or Thames with /θ/.
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 4:26 am
Here I agree with Rachel — I (also a native Briton) would never think of /ˈæn θən i/ as being "stuck up", merely wrong (and laughably so, if used by a fellow native Briton rather than by an L2 English speaker).
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 4:38 am
@Michael Watts
To us Dutch children, it's fank you and funderbirds. In the song "heppie birfdee toejoe" I had a conception that "heppie birfdee" was English for happy birthday, but I thought toejoe was some kind of exclamation of joy.
When I was 18, I first encountered someone who had the rather peculiar mannerism of saying "tenk joe." (That's /tɛŋk/, the "correct" pronunciation would be /fɛŋk/.) I was not commenting on anything remotely common, merely on a quite exceptional oddity that can only be a spelling pronunciation based on a Dutch/German/French understanding of mapping spelling to pronunciation. D'Souza's comment is equally peculiar and incomprehensible.
All that aside, what are you talking about?
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 4:49 am
@Matthew Cutler
If you insufficiently aspirate your Ts then especially Brits might mishear pet as bet even though /t/ and /tʰ/ are allophones.
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 4:50 am
Well, I nicely messed up t and p there. I hope it's still sufficiently clear.
Andrew Usher said,
August 8, 2020 @ 8:26 am
As for the non-reduction of the second syllable in 'Thailand', Trump also does it, both times. So it seems I just wasn't aware that that is the usual pronunciation – it would not be mine. I stand by my assertion that in every other _disyllable_ (not necessarily in longer words) ending -land, the vowel is reduced.
Although embarrassing, /θ/ in 'Thailand' is not incomprehensible for someone reading a teleprompter. The word is not really commonly heard for most Americans, and I would not assume so for the President either, given that I doubt Thailand is normally big on the foreign policy agenda.
Frans:
I understand you, but I think '/t/ and /tʰ/ are allophones' doesn't really apply in initial position, where 'd' is generally pronounced [t] (and so with the other stops). So the mishearing of 'bet' for intended 'pet' you allude to is almost if not quite an identity.
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 9:33 am
Andrew — "Lapland" is /ˈlæp lənd/ for you ?
As to "the word [Thailand] is not really commonly heard for most Americans", I am simply gob-smacked. Americans have a reputation for being unaware of the existence of virtually anything outside of their own state, but I always believed that this was doing the vast majority of them a great dis-service. You now appear to have confirmed that it may indeed be true.
Andrew Usher said,
August 8, 2020 @ 11:51 am
I did not mean to say that many Americans had NEVER heard of it. That's not what I meant by 'commonly' – I mean that it's not a common subject of discussion for most people, and so may not be embedded in the mental lexicon the way common words are, subject to instant recall. The interpretation you put on me is rather uncharitable.
The word 'Lapland' is even less common than 'Thailand' here, and I am not sure I have ever heard it spoken (though it is in my written vocabulary) – I would have /ˈlæplənd/ by analogy, yes.
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 12:10 pm
For what it's worth, I wouldn't be surprised we Europeans and Americans alike hear the word "Thai" much more often than the word Thailand itself (e.g., the Thai capital, the Thai king, Thai immigrants, Thai elephants, Thai restaurant, Thai kitchen).
Coby Lubliner said,
August 8, 2020 @ 1:02 pm
The /θ/ of ancient Hebrew (spelled ת without dagesh) stayed that way in Arab lands, since the sound exists in Arabic, but in southern Europe it became /t/ while in Germany it became /s/, leading to the main consonantal difference between Sephardic (hence Israeli) and Ashkenazic Hebrew. Perhaps it would have become /f/ if there had been Jews in medieval Russia.
Coby Lubliner said,
August 8, 2020 @ 1:05 pm
By the way, I have long been curious about why linguists write "Tai" for the language family that includes Thai.
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 1:12 pm
No uncharitable interpretation intended, Andrew, but even based on "it's not a common subject of discussion for most people, and so may not be embedded in the mental lexicon the way common words are", this does suggest a very different attitude to foreign countries to me (different to the British attitude, that is). I cannot think of a single person who would hesitate over the word "Thailand", any more than I can "Lapland". OK, somwhere like Burkina Faso won't trip off most people's lips, but although I would not agree with the first four of Fran's suggested "more common phrases", there is no doubt that virtually every Briton is familiar with Thai restaurants, Thai cuisine, etc., and Lapland is, of course, where Father Christmas lives.
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 1:18 pm
Coby, Henrik Birnbaum states that there were Jews in mediæval Russia — "On Jewish Life and Anti-Jewish Sentiments in Medieval Russia," in his Essays in Early Slavic Civilization (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1981), 215-45, first published in Viator 4 (1973): 225-255.
Andrew Usher said,
August 8, 2020 @ 1:46 pm
Well that last is a real difference! We have no such tradition; Santa Claus is always said to live 'at the North Pole', never Lapland. (That doesn't make sense, of course, but neither does his actual existence.) To me, 'Lapland' is a rare or archaic geographical term for northern Scandinavia, only.
I still do not see how the commonness of words can be said to reflect a different attitude toward foreign countries; all I can report is my own experience – I hear the word 'Thailand' a few times a year at best, and less often than a few dozen or more other countries. As Frans said, 'Thai' is probably more common than 'Thailand' as well, even though his examples aside from 'Thai restaurant' are questionable.
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:01 pm
I was going by what I've heard or read about Thailand in recent months.
I remember hearing and/or reading about mass protests in the Thai capital a few weeks ago, which is at least partially related to the Thai king/king of Thailand, who apparently likes to hang out in Germany. The Thai demonstrators also have something to do with the Thai electoral commission. I'm sure some phrase like "in Thailand" was also used somewhere along the way but I looked it up, and, well, see for yourself. The word Thailand occurs once or twice in that article depending on if you count the location in the lede, while the word "Thai" is used five times. My prediction is that the news on radio and TV will be similar.
A few months further back Thai elephants were heading from the (Thai) countryside into (Thai) villages due to the lack of tourism in Thailand caused by COVID-19.
And just a few days ago my newspaper ran an article about whom Biden might choose as his running mate. Tammy Duckworth has a Thai mother. I double checked, and the word Thailand does not occur.
So my memory feels vindicated. :)
Ellen K. said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:10 pm
More specifically, Thailand is not a common topic of spoken discussion. I have a friend who lives in Phuket, Thailand. No amount of reading his Facebook posts puts the words Phuket and Thailand into the speech I hear. And I agree that Thai is much more likely to be heard than Thailand.
For me, either reduced or not for the 2nd syllable of Thailand sounds equally correct. I think I'd say it reduced.
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:23 pm
Since my reply is probably stuck in moderation for the moment due to the inclusion of links, I'd like to quickly point out that my examples were my mind's collage of news about Thailand in recent months. Did you guys not talk about Thai elephants heading from the forests and countryside into the villages due to a lack of tourism for example? ;-)
Thai immigrants were in the news because they suffocated in a container on the way from Belgium to the UK. Which is definitely something that's led to discussion about how horribly Brussels police messed up.
I'll leave the rest for my reply that's stuck in moderation.
Thai spices/cuisine/restaurant are topics presumably less guided by recent events. But tbh I don't recall having discussed them in some 15 years since a friend explained how his dad was so fond of spicy food after having lived in Thailand.
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:31 pm
I think that Ellen's "Thailand is not a common topic of spoken discussion" is exactly the point I am seeking to make. "Thailand" is "a common topic of spoken discussion" for many Britons — they have either been there, or just returned from there, or would love to go there. On the basis of almost zero evidence, apart from the statements by Andrew and Ellen, I suspect that the same is just not true for Americans. America (even just the part known as the United States) is a very large continent/country, and it is quite possibly a great adventure for someone from (e.g.,) Alabama to visit (e.g.,) Alaska. Great Britain, on the other hand, is relatively tiny, and thus I suspect that Britons typically spend much more time abroad than do Americans, and therefore spend much more time talking about the foreign places that they have visited.
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:34 pm
Frans — "discussing the elephants" ? No, no-one to whom I spoke mentioned them, and I was not even aware of the story until you mentioned it. But the "Thai immigrants" who were in the news because they suffocated in a container on the way from Belgium to the UK" — were they not Vietnamese ?
Philip Taylor said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:42 pm
And I feel obliged to add that I, for one, do not ascribe the blame for this appalling incident to the Belgian Police — I lay the blame fairly and squarely on the British Government (my Government) for making it virtually impossible for such people to enter the United Kingdom legally. Our present attitude to refugees and immigrants makes me ashamed to be British.
Frans said,
August 8, 2020 @ 2:54 pm
@Philip
In fact sometimes it almost feels as if everybody except for me is either going to or has gone to Thailand on vacation. Thailand is definitely a surprisingly popular topic of discussion.
As an aside, a headline I recall seeing, not sure how recently, went something like: "From Bangkok to Brussels elite is under fire."
Indeed, the specific ones I referenced were Vietnamese. My bad.
As a Dutch national, I fully support that notion. Dutch immigration policy is absolutely horrendous and the very suggestion that it should be even stricter would be laughable if it weren't such a serious matter.
Michael Watts said,
August 8, 2020 @ 8:12 pm
Here's what you said, in full:
And this is not a rare phenomenon. It's one of what appear to be three common ways for people who can't pronounce [θ] to approximate it.
Come on — you speak a language that systematically replaced the existing sound [θ] with [d]. That didn't happen for spelling reasons.
maidhc said,
August 9, 2020 @ 12:52 am
I have a friend with whom I sometimes play French folk music. A couple of years ago he taught us an Alsatian tune that he called "Waltz of St. Thom". It seemed an odd name, but he said, I don't know, that's what the person I learned it from called it.
We have a couple of actual French people in our little musical circle, and one of them suggested that, since the tune is in 5/4 time, it should probably be "Valse à cinq temps".
So I will never get to find out anything about the life and holy works of the Blessed St. Thom.
Frans said,
August 9, 2020 @ 2:26 am
@Michael Watts
And in my experience it most certainly is. :-) Are you perhaps referring to non-Europeans?
In my view, there's:
* Kids unhampered by knowledge go for /f/, occasionally /s/, but since /f/ is more common that's what quickly ends up becoming standard English pronunciation on the playground.
* Kids/adults who have acquired some pronunciation knowledge but can't pronounce it may very well end up with /s/ instead. It's more "correct" in the sense that the lips aren't involved.
* An extremely small but noteworthy outlier minority of kids/adults, presumably hampered by knowledge of spelling, might opt for /t/. Or perhaps it's pronunciation knowledge. Whatever the cause, just because it's the third most common after /f/ and /s/ doesn't actually make it common and I've never heard a child under 10 say it.
And yet it's impossible to hear it as anything other than a fricative, historical developments notwithstanding. If you're right that it's not related to spelling, then these rare /t/-outliers might be absolutely fascinating.
Philip Taylor said,
August 9, 2020 @ 2:50 am
From the perspective of a native British speaker :
/f/ for /θ/ is very much a working-class phenomenon. Few educated children would make that mistake (/θɪŋk/ -> /fɪŋʔ/);
/s/ (and /z/) for /θ/ is something I associate with non-native speakers;
/t/ for /θ/ is an Irish phenomenon (which is not to say that it does not occur elsewhere), and — presumably because of Irish emigration — also made its way into some parts of the United States;
with /d/ for /θ/ I am unfamiliar, despite having spent several weeks in the Netherlands over the course of the years.
Fransf said,
August 9, 2020 @ 6:41 am
@Philip
Yes, I'm talking about non-native speakers whose native tongue is Dutch, German, and Luxembourgish, but also French.
/f/ is the "proper," natural way to interpret the foreign fricative.
/s/ is the "corrected" interpretation (i.e., it's not /f/, avoid /f/, but /θ/ and /ð/ are a bridge too far; it's somewhat unclear if there are people who naturally hear and say this)
And then there's the mysterious /t/ that shows up once in a blue moon. Out of many dozens of English learners I've almost never heard this. That's part of what makes it weird and remarkable in the first place. I personally don't understand /s/ but it's not at all comparable because it's fairly common, perhaps even part of a stereotypical Dutch/French/German accent.
Come to think of it, isn't [tʰ] for [θ] part of a stereotypical Indian accent? Which would certainly be a much more relevant datum within the context of this blog post than the Euro-centric perspective I somewhat unthinkingly inserted, which would make it quite common indeed. And if D'Souza pronounces both "think" and "Thailand" with [tʰ], such a hypothesis could even provide explanatory power.
That's referring to how words like think → denk, brother → broeder (broer), weather → weder (weer), feather → veder (veer), etc. are presumed to have used /θ/ and/or /ð/ in Old Dutch. As such /θ/ → /d/ is a natural evolution, and it certainly lends credibility to the claim that /t/ and/or /d/ could be some kind of natural approximation.
As an aside, it makes you wonder if perhaps it wasn't alveolar /θ/ instead of dental /θ/, at least by the time the switch occurred.
Frans said,
August 9, 2020 @ 6:44 am
So to be clear, when I wrote:
What I actually meant:
Frans said,
August 9, 2020 @ 6:46 am
Gah, I didn't even include any links. I wrote a spiel in part saying that [tʰ] for [θ] is part of a stereotypical Indian accent, so in that sense obviously it's common.
Philip Taylor said,
August 9, 2020 @ 8:45 am
Needless to say, as a native British speaker with some familiarity with the Slavonic family of languages, it came as a complete surprise to me when visiting Hungary to discover that Szombathely is not pronounced /ʃɒm ˈbeɪ θli/ at all but rather as something along the lines of /sɒm bæt ˈheɪ/ !
Bathrobe said,
August 9, 2020 @ 9:13 am
To add to the list of places ending in 'land', Newfoundland and Queensland.
I've always pronounced the former with a schwa. The latter can go either way.
David C. said,
August 9, 2020 @ 10:24 am
@ Bathrobe, I think you just read my mind with the two examples. I have wondered why the /lænd/ pronunciation for Queensland is preferred, when place names ending in -land are generally pronounced /lənd/.
Newfoundland is equally puzzling. Public media in Canada and people on the island itself always say /ˈnu.fəndˌlænd/. But I've heard everything from /ˈnjuːˌfaʊnd.lənd/, /ˈnjuː.fənd.lənd/ to /ˌnjuː'faʊndˌlænd/ even in Canada. I had even started to question myself on what is the correct pronunciation. Likely a case of spelling pronunciation.
Frans said,
August 9, 2020 @ 10:30 am
My understanding (from Newfies) is that it's something like /ˈnufən(d)lənd/. I imagine there might be a separate correct non-local pronunciation.
Michael Watts said,
August 9, 2020 @ 3:15 pm
Watching the interview of Dinesh D'Souza (mentioned in the Twitter thread as an example of him pronouncing "Thailand" correctly"), he opens with correct /θ/ and /ð/ in "think"; "this"; "the"; "that"; "through"; "they"; "thrust" — so it doesn't look like he's unable to tell the difference.
Michael Watts said,
August 9, 2020 @ 3:18 pm
(It's possible that he's having trouble with the /θɹ/ cluster, but it's equally possible that he's producing it in a completely normal way and my perception that he might be having trouble is purely an artifact of me paying attention to something I don't ordinarily think about.)
Andrew Usher said,
August 9, 2020 @ 9:25 pm
Re Newfoundland and Queensland (Australia):
Newfoundland doesn't actually contain the suffix -land; it's a simple concatenation of a three-word phrase. And the middle word started to be weakened almost as soon as the place was recorded; it should never be stressed. As David C. acknowledged the clear standard is /ˈn(j)u.fən(d)ˌlænd/, which should be recommended to all non-Newfoundlanders (the local pronunciation is said to put the main stress on 'land', but that difference is not too salient).
Queensland is probably always assumed to be reduced by people that don't know the local preference, and even though I think that the inhabitants of an English-speaking place ought to be given some deference regarding its pronunciation, they must be given as equal alternatives, as indeed for 'Thailand'. I do not know any history of why it should be unreduced and assume it's essentially a local eccentricity.
D'Souza's comment that opened this discussion is simply incomprehensible.
Bathrobe said,
August 9, 2020 @ 10:28 pm
In the ditty
Queensland-born Queensland-bred,
Long in the legs and thick in the head
the pronunciation I heard it in was the reduced form. And I heard it from a Queenslander.
Andreas Johansson said,
August 10, 2020 @ 12:04 am
When I was a kid learning English and having trouble with the interdentals, I replaced /θ/ with /f/ and /t/ in various words apparently at random, e.g. "fing", but "tink". I have no idea why I didn't go consistently with the one or the other.
I consistendly used /d/ for /ð/.
Philip Taylor said,
August 10, 2020 @ 2:26 am
Bathrobe's ditty suggests to me that even those of us (such as myself) who habitually use /ˈkwiːnz lænd/ might well switch to /-lənd/ when the following word requires stress.
Regarding Andrew's analysis of 'Newfoundland', even though "the middle word started to be weakened almost as soon as the place was recorded [and] should never be stressed" (a fact of which I was previously unaware), my own pronunciation is the diametric opposite, /nju ˈfaʊnd lənd/.
Frans said,
August 10, 2020 @ 3:12 am
@Andreas
Thank you, that's fascinating.
Are you Swedish by any chance? It only just occurred to me there's also such a thing as dental /t/ and /d/, specifically in Swedish if I'm not mistaken. In some dialects of Dutch it might also be denti-alveolar or perhaps even dental, which could provide a satisfactory phonological explanation instead of or in addition to the spelling interference I posited. I believe all or at least most of the rare few I've heard say things like "tenk you" were originally from the east (e.g., Groningen).
Frans said,
August 10, 2020 @ 3:15 am
Which also negates this parenthetical. It's at least as plausible to posit dental /θ/ → dental /d/ → (denti-)alveolar /d/. My own tongue would say more so but that probably doesn't mean much. ;-)
Andreas Johansson said,
August 10, 2020 @ 6:31 am
@frans:
Yes I'm Swedish and yes Swedish /t/ is typically dental.
Ellen K. said,
August 10, 2020 @ 3:34 pm
Seems to me that when what comes before -land is a recognizable morpheme, then -land can be unreduced, but when the word is firmly a single morpheme, it would be really odd to have an unreduced -land. Thus Thailand with an unreduced 2nd syllable works, but England does not. That's for 2 syllable words.
I suppose it could alternatively be described as the 2nd syllable being unstressed vs having secondary stress.
Andrew Usher said,
August 10, 2020 @ 6:33 pm
But Iceland, Greenland, highland, lowland …
Certainly 'England' must be reduced ordinarily, but in singing I could easily have /iŋglænd/ if the meter seemed to call for it, which reminds me that it is always divided Eng-land even though /ŋg/ is not allowed word-final; strange. Some time ago trisyllabic 'England' (En-ge-land) in soccer chants was mentioned; but no one stated that it avoided final /ŋg/, which may be a reason for the epenthesis.
Philip Taylor:
Right about the stress thing. I can certainly imagine the person reciting that using /ˈkwinslænd/ in ordinary speech. The same phenomenon can sometimes be seen with similarly-behaving suffixes like -man.
I'm sorry to have to say it, but if I heard your /nju ˈfaʊnd lənd/ I'd hesitate a moment before realising that it actually is the same place as /ˈnufəndˌlænd/; a name I actually do speak somewhat frequently, as it is a geographical extreme of North America.
Frans:
Just what is an alveolar /θ/? I confess I find myself unable to say any such sound. Making a /θ/ alveolar automatically makes it a kind of /s/, does it not?
Michael Watts said,
August 10, 2020 @ 11:28 pm
/θ/ can be pronounced with the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower teeth, or with the tip of the tongue jammed up against the back of the upper teeth.
The official terminology for this appears to be "interdental" vs "dental", but I can see why someone might think of it instead as "dental" vs "alveolar".
It may be relevant that, while American pronunciation is generally not of the interdental variety, foreign speakers may learn that variety simply because it is much easier to teach (and sounds identical to the American ear — there is not even a risk of sounding "slightly off" if you learn the sound this way).
John Swindle said,
August 11, 2020 @ 2:05 am
Trump's initial, mistaken pronunciation LOOKS interdental to me. I could be mistaken.
Frans said,
August 11, 2020 @ 2:06 am
@Andrew
Perhaps, that's a matter of the label you choose to stick on it. Imagine you're saying /t/, but keep the tongue in place while blowing air past it. The sound is quite distinct from a normal hissing /s/ and sounds closer to /θ/. Wikipedia calls it a "voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative."
@Michael Watts
That'd be the in-between step. I meant an implicit dental → [denti-alveolar] → alveolar as I made more explicit in my reply to myself.
Frans said,
August 11, 2020 @ 2:20 am
Assuming you have a normal alveolar /t/, of course. I suppose the principle for /t/ vs /θ/ works for any position though.
Where I (stupidly) assumed it'd have to be denti-alveolar or alveolar before it could make the switch because only those two occur in Modern Dutch. But as I since pointed out all those sounds can occur in any of those positions.
Michael Watts said,
August 11, 2020 @ 3:40 am
Am I understanding correctly that the tongue is in place to pronounce a /t/ — tip of the tongue in contact with the alveolar ridge — and you force air around it? I can produce a sound this way, and it could be interpreted as a /θ/, but it's really a lot of physical strain to do this.
Frans said,
August 11, 2020 @ 9:17 am
That's correct, except for the physical strain part of course. :-) Something must be subtly lacking from my explanation. The air doesn't need to go past on both sides; just one side suffices.
Andrew Usher said,
August 11, 2020 @ 7:48 pm
The Wikipedia article also equates it with the Irish lenited t. That sound is often heard as /s/, sometimes as /ts/ when final, but never that I know as /θ/. Nor would it be when it is a voiceless allophone of /r/ (the voiced fricative /r/ is very common, and I assume it's sometimes devoiced).
The interdental/dental distinction, though, is certainly valid even though they sound identical. I have a suspicion the interdental is more common for the voiced 'th' than for the voiceless one.
Frans said,
August 12, 2020 @ 1:46 am
Would you happen to know a recording of an Irish English speaker who exhibits this lenited t?
In any case, I recorded what it can sound like.
https://soundcloud.com/user-548091080/thing-dental-thing-alveolar-not-interdental-sing
Chris Adams said,
August 12, 2020 @ 6:49 am
People using /θ/ in Britain/Australia/NZ would get mocked as 'stuck-up' lah-di-dah. I've always pronounced myself with /t/, except when needing a 'spelling pronunciation' for officialdom.
I can't speak for Britain or New Zealand, but as an Australian I firmly associate /t/ with a (subjectively) slightly stuffy, British version that really ought to be spelled "Antony". Every single Anthony I have ever known and can recall has pronounced it with /θ/ (if not /f/) , and so has everyone else around them.
Here's an example from Australian football commentary from a few years ago, Anthony Rocca kicking an extraordinarily long goal: https://youtu.be/xc0kROXvq8w?t=29
Philip Taylor said,
August 12, 2020 @ 10:00 am
Frans, I am told that your "Soundcloud" recording no longer exists …
As to a recording, I do not have one to hand (but will search for one) but an anecdote from 50 years ago, when I was recovering from pulmonary tuberculosis in St Mary's Hospital, Sidcup. I got out of bed, arguably wearing less than I should have been in a public ward, and my little Irish nurse took one look at me and said /ˈdʒeɪz əs, ˈfɪl ɪp, jɔr ˈɑːf əl tɪn/ !
Frans said,
August 12, 2020 @ 10:17 am
I think this should work.
https://soundcloud.com/user-548091080/thing-dental-thing-alveolar-not-interdental-sing/s-CZgXfxkjt7C
Philip Taylor said,
August 12, 2020 @ 10:35 am
Thank you Frans, I can indeed confirm that that link works ('tho a transcript would be useful !).
I have now also remembered that when the soup course came round, my little Irish nurse would ask / tɪk ɔː tin, ˈfɪl ɪp ?/
James Kabala said,
August 12, 2020 @ 11:07 am
I think I usually say Greenland unreduced. To be honest, both ways sound kind of right. Same thing for Iceland and Queensland.
Frans said,
August 12, 2020 @ 11:11 am
Apologies. I said each variety three times embedded in some meaningless phrases.
I have a thing, a thing, a thing.
And now I have a thing, a thing, a thing.
And I sing, I sing, I sing
First normal dental /θɪŋ/.
Then however you want to transcribe it alveolar /θɪŋ/.
Followed by /sɪŋ/ for contrast.
Andrew Usher said,
August 12, 2020 @ 7:29 pm
Thanks. I would in fact transcribe that, within the IPA, as the same /θ/ symbol, because it's practically indistinguishable (like the interdental form) and there's no other symbol for it. Apparently several different alveolar non-sibilant fricatives are possible, but the IPA has dedicated symbols for none of them!
James Kabala:
I take 'Greenland' and 'Iceland' as paradigmatic cases of reduction, despite their foreign origin. I remember being corrected for unreduced Greenland, Iceland, highland, lowland, hence my choice of that list.
Chris Adams:
Interesting. I presume the Australian spelling-pronunciation must have developed indepedently from the American. By the way, if we really followed the Latin, 'Ant(h)ony' would have penultimate stress as well as /t/.
ajay said,
August 13, 2020 @ 10:38 am
Reduced vs unreduced "-land", I've got another few: Kingsland (as in Kingsland Road in east London) is reduced to Kingsl'nd, just as England, Scotland, Maryland etc are. At least it is when I say it and whenever I hear it spoken (and I've heard it spoken quite a bit since I used to live in that area).
But the theme park Disneyland and the Woody Harrelson film "Zombieland" are both unreduced, like Thailand.
And I think that any coinings of novel -lands would also be unreduced. Try saying, for example, "The Great Lakes states are Biden country, except Indiana, which is definitely Trumpland." Unreduced, right? You wouldn't say "Trumpl'nd"?
Andrew Usher said,
August 13, 2020 @ 6:43 pm
Agreed. I suppose what it means is that the process of reduction is, at least, no longer consistently productive. Obviously it once was, because all the '-land' names must have been unreduced once, as still in other Germanic languages.
Philip Taylor said,
August 14, 2020 @ 4:44 am
Ajay, for me at least, the "land" in "Maryland" is unreduced in the set phrase "Maryland cookies".
James Wimberley said,
August 14, 2020 @ 6:48 am
One of the Vice-Presidents of the European Commission is the Slovak Maroš Šefčovič. I look forward to Mr. D'Souza's expert advice on how to pronounce his name.
Andrew Usher said,
August 14, 2020 @ 7:23 pm
As 'Maryland Cookies' is a UK brand name, I suppose the company can pronounce it however they want. But if I were to use that phrase, I'd see no reason to depart from the usual /'mærɪlənd/.
Michael Watts said,
August 15, 2020 @ 4:54 am
I'm uncomfortable with this; in my mind, 'Iceland' is definitely and always reduced, but 'Greenland' might or might not be.
Philip Taylor said,
August 15, 2020 @ 6:10 am
Andrew, in British English, even if the "a" of "land" were not reduced, the pronunciation would not be as transcribed by you. Where you (and presumably most speakers of <Am.E>) have /æ/ and /ɪ/, we Britons have /eə/ and /i/, thus / ˈmeər i ˌlænd/ or (perhaps when not a biscuit) /ˈmeər i lənd/. We would think /'mærɪlənd/ to be a transcription of "*marrilund".
Andrew Usher said,
August 15, 2020 @ 6:35 pm
The first vowel can vary as is usual before /r/, but the second is always reduced; I considered my pronunciation to be closer to KIT than schwa, but the distinction is of course marginal.
In turn, your pronunciation could well be taken as 'Merry land' here, and indeed 'Merry Land Cookies' sounds as plausible a name to me as 'Maryland Cookies', we having no reason to associate the state with confectionery.
This pronunciation difference is obviously not well-known, though it must come up. As you reduced historical 'Mary' this way in 'Marylebone' (one pronunciation, at least) and of course 'Marilyn', it shouldn't be beyond imagination that 'Maryland' could be said that way. Again, save differences of accent, the local pronunciation in English should normally be respected.
Michael Watts:
I'm not laying down an absolute rule as there is none here. Yes, unreduced 'Greenland' is recorded, but not preferred; the opposite of 'Thailand'. You can't expect consistency always.