{"id":34177,"date":"2017-08-20T07:25:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-20T12:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=34177"},"modified":"2017-08-20T16:34:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-20T21:34:29","slug":"ask-language-log-how-to-pronounce-antifa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=34177","title":{"rendered":"Ask Language Log: How to pronounce \"Antifa\"?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From P.D.:<\/p>\n

Long time reader, first time caller, etc. etc. As an armchair linguistics fan and someone who gets his news primarily online rather than from cable news, I've been wondering how one ought to go about pronouncing the word \"antifa.\" I'd like to discuss current events with friends without putting my foot in it, like the friend I once had who pronounced \"archive\" as though it were something you might chop up and put on a bagel with some cream cheese. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My impression is that Norma Loquendi in America seems mostly to have decided on [\u02cc\u00e6n'ti.f\u0259] — first syllable \"Ann\", second syllable \"tea\", third syllable rhymes with \"uh\", with the main word stress on \"tea\", as in this 8\/19\/2017 ABC 20\/20 segment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But there's an alternative — so in this 8\/19\/2017 CNN story<\/a>, Jake Tapper has something like ['\u00e6n.ti.f\u0250], with intitial-syllable stress and more of a full vowel on the final syllable:<\/p>\n

It's easy to see why people come out different ways on this one. The source word anti-fascist<\/strong> has primary stress on the third syllable and secondary stress on the first syllable. One approach would is to trim the pronunciation of anti-fascist<\/em> to the portion corresponding to the spelling \"antifa\" — but this runs into the problem that \u00a0[\u00e6] doesn't normally occur in English final open syllables. So the solution is to remove the stress from the third syllable, which shifts the main stress to the first syllable, and then either change the final vowel to one that can end a stressed syllable in English, or reduce it to schwa, or leave it in some kind of quasi-reduced limbo as Tapper does.<\/p>\n

In the other direction, there's strong pressure to apply penultimate stress to vowel-final borrowed or constructed words in English, as in \"Tiramisu<\/a>\" or \"Samarra<\/a>\" or \"NATO\". So I'm predicting that \u00a0[\u00e6n'ti.f\u0259] \u00a0is going to win in the end. But for now, at least, you can take your pick.<\/p>\n

On a related note: is there a term of art for a mispronunciation borne of learning a word solely from written context, a sort of spoken eggcorn?<\/span><\/p>\n

It's called a \"spelling pronunciation\".<\/p>\n

Update — there's a third option, from later in the same ABC 20\/20 segment, where Lacy Macauley, self-identified as an Antifa activist, uses the pronunciation [\u02cc\u0251n'ti.f\u0259], with penultimate stress but a low back vowel in the first syllable — perhaps taken from a European version of the movement?:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From P.D.: Long time reader, first time caller, etc. etc. As an armchair linguistics fan and someone who gets his news primarily online rather than from cable news, I've been wondering how one ought to go about pronouncing the word \"antifa.\" I'd like to discuss current events with friends without putting my foot in it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pronunciation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34177"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34205,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34177\/revisions\/34205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}