What is the "correct" pronunciation of a loan word?
In English, we often try to attempt the native pronunciation of loan words. And we don’t allow our writing system to control the way we pronounce foreign words. For example, we don’t pronounce “faux pas” as “fowks pass”, and if a friend asked for a “tor-till-ah” instead of “tor-tee-ya”, or “ka-rah-jee” instead of “kara-ah-gee”, you might politely correct them.
In Japanese however, it seems like no such effort is made. Foreign words are transposed into the Japanese writing system, and then read phonetically with seemingly little effort at maintaining the original pronunciation. Muhk-don-aldz becomes ma-ku-don-aru-do; work becomes waa-ku.
In English we know that a Spanish-origin word with two consecutive Ls makes a Y sound. Why then, don’t Japanese people know that you don’t need to pronounce all the extraneous vowels that the Japanese writing system forces into English-origin words? Japanese people certainly use more English loan words than English people use Spanish loan words, so it’s not an issue of familiarity.
I have a theory to expain this phenomenon. First, we have to assume the following things are true:
Some sounds or combinations of sounds that exist in one language don’t exist in many others. This means when a word is borrowed from a different language, the borrowing language often can’t reproduce the pronunciation perfectly as it appears in the native language.
People generally try to pronounce words correctly, as this leads to better communication and understanding, even if this effort is subconscious.
My theory is this, and it applies to any language: the “correct” pronunciation of a loan word is not the native pronunciation. It is actually the pronunciation that gets the closest to the native pronunciation while still only using sounds and combinations of sounds that exist in the language borrowing the word.
I was really satified when I came up with this because it explains a few odd happenings.
It explains why Japanese people make no effort to avoid pronouncing the extraneous vowels they add between consonants in English loan words (because such combinations of sounds simply don’t exist in the Japanese phonetic system).
It explains why people find cooking show hosts pretentious when they suddenly pronounce an ingredient with its native pronunciation, like “parmesan” (because the native pronunciation is “overshooting” - they did not use the agreed upon english pronunciation of the loan word).
It explains why, if I ask a supermarket staff member where the “tofu” is, with perfect Japanese pronunciation, they most likely will not understand me.
That said, my theory may be wrong, and as someone with no formal education in linguistics, I would love it if a real linguist or linguistics student responded to this post with a different opinion or more information!
