that's a really big assumption. it could also be because American people are more familiar with french than german, or some other weird factor. also, it doesn't really matter the reason, because languages change according to how people use them, not according to what some online dork gets hung up on because he thinks he knows better. nietzhsche and descartes are both too known to make a claim about the general public's knowledge of their native pronunciations
Sorry for the late reply. IDK what the deal is, but the main site doesn't load when I try going there.
Anyways, German absolutely has changed lol. It literally evolved from the same ancestral language as English and has made plenty of changes that English is conservative on. For example, the English <th> sounds in words like "thorn" and "that" are ancestral (as well as the final /t/ sound), while the German equivalents "Dorn" and "dass" are both less conservative and have altered those <th> and /t/ sounds. Just because Nietzsche is a guy's name doesn't mean it's an exception to language change and people mangling native pronunciation. This is a linguistics thing, not a specifically American thing.
americans absolutely use both of those names to sound smart and say them differently than native speakers, just to a lesser degree. "euripides" is actually a great example of how greek has changed with time, given that they say the <u> as a /v/ and the second <e> as /i/ now. the idea that one group of people pronounces something normally and another doesn't is rooted in the idea that some way of speech is more normal than another, which just isn't correct or even measurable
"nothing can ever be correct" is not the epistemology of linguistic descriptivism. the idea is that if a group of speakers regularly use a pronunciation, that pronunciation is correct for that group of speakers. it's obviously not correct german, but the people saying /nitʃi/ aren't trying to speak german.
how about, when you pronounce a person’s name, you pronounce it the way they did to the best of your ability.
this is usually the procedure, even for americans, when people are familiar with the language in question. americans tend not to be that familiar with german these days, so spelling based pronunciations sneak in more than from, say, spanish. however, it also has its limits. if i say my australian friend's name in his accent, it's considered sarcastic or insulting rather than correct - everyone knows that it's not normal for someone with my accent to say /aːθə/ (ahthuh) for "arthur". for many english speakers, there is a culture perception that it's worse to imitate people too closely than it is to maintain an englishy accent, hyperforeignisms and all. i don't know where that belief comes from, but i think it's a little weird to chalk it up arrogance. a lot of times i've personally witnessed it, it came across more as an embarrassment thing.
the american arrogance is in deciding that it’s actually correct to not bother.
again, it's really not unique to americans. loanwords are nearly always assimilated to a language's own phonology given enough time. that sometimes includes things like spelling-based alterations or changing a less typical form to a more typical one, even if both are technically legal in the language's phonology. in (american) english, both of these apply for "nietzsche", because <e> is much more commonly pronounced /i/ or unpronounced at the end of a word than it is pronounced as /ə/ in the same position. final schwa is usually spelled <a>, is almost entirely from loanwords in the first place, and is a lot less common than final /i/ as in words like "kitty" and "epitome". even though it may sound like nails on a chalkboard to you, these factors all create the perfect environment for the word to be assimilated to a more englishy sound.
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that's a really big assumption. it could also be because American people are more familiar with french than german, or some other weird factor. also, it doesn't really matter the reason, because languages change according to how people use them, not according to what some online dork gets hung up on because he thinks he knows better. nietzhsche and descartes are both too known to make a claim about the general public's knowledge of their native pronunciations
deleted by creator
Sorry for the late reply. IDK what the deal is, but the main site doesn't load when I try going there.
Anyways, German absolutely has changed lol. It literally evolved from the same ancestral language as English and has made plenty of changes that English is conservative on. For example, the English <th> sounds in words like "thorn" and "that" are ancestral (as well as the final /t/ sound), while the German equivalents "Dorn" and "dass" are both less conservative and have altered those <th> and /t/ sounds. Just because Nietzsche is a guy's name doesn't mean it's an exception to language change and people mangling native pronunciation. This is a linguistics thing, not a specifically American thing.
deleted by creator
americans absolutely use both of those names to sound smart and say them differently than native speakers, just to a lesser degree. "euripides" is actually a great example of how greek has changed with time, given that they say the <u> as a /v/ and the second <e> as /i/ now. the idea that one group of people pronounces something normally and another doesn't is rooted in the idea that some way of speech is more normal than another, which just isn't correct or even measurable
deleted by creator
"nothing can ever be correct" is not the epistemology of linguistic descriptivism. the idea is that if a group of speakers regularly use a pronunciation, that pronunciation is correct for that group of speakers. it's obviously not correct german, but the people saying /nitʃi/ aren't trying to speak german.
this is usually the procedure, even for americans, when people are familiar with the language in question. americans tend not to be that familiar with german these days, so spelling based pronunciations sneak in more than from, say, spanish. however, it also has its limits. if i say my australian friend's name in his accent, it's considered sarcastic or insulting rather than correct - everyone knows that it's not normal for someone with my accent to say /aːθə/ (ahthuh) for "arthur". for many english speakers, there is a culture perception that it's worse to imitate people too closely than it is to maintain an englishy accent, hyperforeignisms and all. i don't know where that belief comes from, but i think it's a little weird to chalk it up arrogance. a lot of times i've personally witnessed it, it came across more as an embarrassment thing.
again, it's really not unique to americans. loanwords are nearly always assimilated to a language's own phonology given enough time. that sometimes includes things like spelling-based alterations or changing a less typical form to a more typical one, even if both are technically legal in the language's phonology. in (american) english, both of these apply for "nietzsche", because <e> is much more commonly pronounced /i/ or unpronounced at the end of a word than it is pronounced as /ə/ in the same position. final schwa is usually spelled <a>, is almost entirely from loanwords in the first place, and is a lot less common than final /i/ as in words like "kitty" and "epitome". even though it may sound like nails on a chalkboard to you, these factors all create the perfect environment for the word to be assimilated to a more englishy sound.