Pronunciation Peeves!

[Queen Victoria]

Cue-pon for coo-pon.

[ZEGH8578]

I have a major peeve - "initiative" - in Norwegian

It's written "initiativ" (identical to English, sans the -e) and is pronounced "inisiativ" or "initsiativ" depending how you want to treat the T, both those are accepted

I have yet to hear a single Norwegian pronounce it correctly, and I pronounce it correctly because I started to read how the word looked like, and trust my fucking eyes. Only years later did I realize that I did pronounce it correctly, while practically nobody else does. Me and maybe 12 other Norwegians seem bothered by this, everyone else are idiots

"inshinativ" is the most common, but over-complications are also typical, such as "ishniativ" or "inshinshativ" - i have NO idea where they get the "sh" from, and even less where some get a second "sh" from, but... I'm looking out for whoever pronounces it with 3 sh-es in a row, like "ishinshishativ" or something...

[Gopher Gary]

I'm not sure how you're saying it, but initiative has an sh sound in English pronunciation too. 

[ZEGH8578]

I'm not sure how you're saying it, but initiative has an sh sound in English pronunciation too. 

We say it pretty straight forward ini (eenee) sia (see-uh) tiv (teev)

inisiativ.

I get that it may twist a Norwegian tongue a little, but come on, we should be adults >:I

It's not just the sh, its a turn around of letters "in-shin-ativ" vs "ini-sia-tiv" <--no in-shin

[Gopher Gary]

Americans don't say it with any long vowel sounds. This link has a speaker icon next to the word, so you can hear it. Is this how people say it when it bothers you? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/initiative

[Gopher Gary]

Americans don't say it with any long vowel sounds. This link has a speaker icon next to the word, so you can hear it. Is this how people say it when it bothers you? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/initiative

It's acceptable two ways, but the recording only uses one. [ih-nish-ee-uh-tiv, ih-nish-uh-tiv] I use the second one without the long ee sound in the middle.

[ZEGH8578]

Americans don't say it with any long vowel sounds. This link has a speaker icon next to the word, so you can hear it. Is this how people say it when it bothers you? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/initiative

English was the only thing I recieved *top* scores on, consistently
The Norwegian pronounciation is not similar to the American English one, other than sharing the use of "sh"

inishutiv <--inish
vs
inshinuhtiv <--inshi

It's just a childish insecurity that has copied itself, because everyone pronounces it like the next guy pronounces it, instead of trusting themselves to pronounce it exactly as it is written
when writing it, they often write it "insiativ" reflecting their erroneous pronounciation, again, compare

ini-tiativ
insia-tiv
insina-tiv is alternatively common, the pattern being that nobody knows how many "sh"-es there are - as well as where the "n" goes, and how many n-s there are to begin with. Nobody realizes there are no "sh"-es there at all...

[Gopher Gary]

It's just a childish insecurity that has copied itself, because everyone pronounces it like the next guy pronounces it, instead of trusting themselves to pronounce it exactly as it is written

I don't agree with insecurity, it's probably more like how accents develop. I don't get too worked up about pronunciation. People in the south have a sloppy way speaking so I'm sure I do it too because I'm a product of my environment. 

[ZEGH8578]

It's just a childish insecurity that has copied itself, because everyone pronounces it like the next guy pronounces it, instead of trusting themselves to pronounce it exactly as it is written

I don't agree with insecurity, it's probably more like how accents develop. I don't get too worked up about pronunciation. People in the south have a sloppy way speaking so I'm sure I do it too because I'm a product of my environment. 

I don't know if it is insecurity directly - but there IS something going on there, because there is no _consensus_ on how to pronounce it.
That is why this particular word bothers me.
I know language changes, because it's basically linguistic evolution, and evolution makes me happy. This comes down to people simply not knowing how the word is built up. My brother repeatedly asked me how to pronounce it, because he hears so many different "improvised" pronounciations, and looking the word up on forums (to check if there is even a debate) I find the same trend - this word stands out by the fact that nobody knows how to pronounce it, and often wing it, with that self-muffle you do when you don't want to let everyone know you're just guessing "You have to take some inshimshishishtive!" - so yes - insecurity strongly comes into play here, but it's more a collective insecurity than a personal one.

[Gopher Gary]

"You have to take some inshimshishishtive!"

  They should just say ambition.

[ZEGH8578]

"You have to take some inshimshishishtive!"

  They should just say ambition.

We do - and that one we DO say exactly like in English, only with different accent
And we write it "ambisjon" sj=sh

One actual example of linguistic evolution is the gradual loss of "kj" also written "k" "t" or "tj", it is a "sh"-like sound that does not exist in English. In Norwegian it is being replaced by "sh", because youth are unable to pronounce it. My own sisters lack the ability to pronounce it. It used to bug me, but I now accept it as an inevitable development, mainly because it is uniform to the whole country. The loss of this sound can be dated to the 70s-80s and accelerates through the 90s. I'm probably among the last generations to keep this sound.

Norwegian words for "meat" or "dress" (kjøtt, kjole) are being pronounced "shøtt" and "shole" instead. Since I have no way of describing the sound of "kj" to you, imagine a similar development where all "ch" are replaced by "sh", like, "chess" becoming "shess", "choice" becoming "shoice"

[Gopher Gary]

I could never adapt to that sort of shange. 

[ZEGH8578]

I could never adapt to that sort of shange. 

Oh, it still bothers me to hear it, because... it's wrong!
But I accept it... from a logical point of view... there are many sounds that have been lost, like the two "th"s, "THrough" and "THat" were common in old Norse, and still exist in Icelandic

(in fact, you guys pronounce "Thor" more correctly than Norwegians, Danes and Swedes - who say "Tor")

[Gopher Gary]

I really like it when foreigners say things funny. Years ago I used to order Chinese food from this guy who couldn't say zero. I've heard other Asian people who have trouble with the letter z, but they usually replace it with a g sound. This guy cracked me up and I looked forward to him every time I called because my credit card number at the time had a lot of zeros. He'd always repeat my number back to me. four two nine yellow, three seven yellow yellow, four yellow four yellow, three five one yellow. Or something like that.

[ZEGH8578]

I really like it when foreigners say things funny. Years ago I used to order Chinese food from this guy who couldn't say zero. I've heard other Asian people who have trouble with the letter z, but they usually replace it with a g sound. This guy cracked me up and I looked forward to him every time I called because my credit card number at the time had a lot of zeros. He'd always repeat my number back to me. four two nine yellow, three seven yellow yellow, four yellow four yellow, three five one yellow. Or something like that.

The more distant the language-group, the more difficult pronounciation (both ways), and yeah - Chinese people struggle hard with most Indo-European languages (and vice-versa)
It can get very awkward, in a Chinese restaurant once the waitress (who was very authentic :'D) repeatedly asked me something I could NOT comprehend at all - she finally mimed it, and she was asking if I wanted more coffee. She seemed unable to pronounce a single one of the consonants involved, which... becomes problematic :'D Consonants are pretty important in a lot of languages

Some foreign languages just-so-happen to work well in Norway, such as those of east-African English, they take on Norwegian phonetics pretty well - but even better are Pakistanis, they seem to allready share a lot of sounds, and will often take on even local dialect with relative ease