What's a place that when you hear someone pronounce it, you can immediately tell if they're...
A couple from my state:
Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac
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I hardly even know her
It definitely doesn’t rhyme with ‘Funky Cold Medina’ 
It’s pronounced locally as Muh-DYNE-uh.
Last edited Sun Mar 26, 2023, 01:47 AM - Edit history (1)
japple was probably thinking of Boerne, pronounced:
Berlin, NH is pronounced that way, too.
Last edited Tue Apr 4, 2023, 09:43 AM - Edit history (1)
Conversations with some of those friends, from my college days I forgot to say. One of those I still have contact with, our linguistics prof. His wife was my dearest friend for 30 years and the whole family took me in as one of their own, we are still very close.
The Nevada, Idaho, Oregon border region and beyond is big sheep country and many of the Basque are/were involved in that. They are part of the Pioneer Days celebrations in Sun Valley/Ketchum every summer too. Most of the sheep herders that I encountered out in the wilds of Idaho, when I was out chasing wolves, were either Basque or from Argentina and may have also been Basque but I couldn't speak what they were speaking so we adopted a sort of lingua franca sort of sign language.
It's some wild, open country out there.
I am sure the diaspora has grown. When I was in Pocatello, one of my neighbors was a Basque man whole had, in his earlier years had gone to Spain and said he spent time in jail for speaking Euskera in public. It's known as an Isolate since it doesn't relate back to any roots of the languages spoken in cultures anywhere near it or clearly identified in the past.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting perspective from over there! I envy your career and the travel it affords. I had dreams of speaking several languages but the closest I got was using them in musical performance instead. At least I had to learn the translations so I knew what i was performing. I used choir as my practicum for my BA.
Furriners pronounce it "Miz-zour-ee". Native pronunciation is "Miz-zour-uh." PROPER pronunciation is "Miz-zour-ih" (short "i"
.
Missourians are horrible at geography--for a good reason. Ask a native Missourian where any of these places are:
California
Nevada (pronounced "nuh-VAY-da"
Mexico
Moscow
Versailles (don't you DARE use the French pronunciation!)
Paris
Albany
Cuba
Cabool
(I could go on....)
It's always funny listening to the traffic report from newly arrived on-air radio announcers and there is a traffic jam on Fuqua or Kuykendahl. (fyoo - kway and kirk - en - doll)
There's a neighborhood that's being gentrified and a lot of newbies have moved on to Tuam. It's "too - am" if you're local, but "twahm or even something close to "2:00 a.m." if you're invading. 😆
But nothing tops those BP engineers I had as clients years ago who told me they were going out to a drilling site near "Gone Zayles, Texas." They literally couldn't pronounce the name Gonzalez.
If you grew up in Pittsburgh (or you know someone who did) then you've heard it correctly pronounced:
Car - NEGG - ee - with the accent on the 2nd syllable.
Everyone else including all the New Yorkers who frequent the Music Hall pronounce it:
CAR- nuh -gee - with the accent on the first syllable.
But we Pittsburghers know how to say it because Andrew Carnegie lived among us, as well as his entire family. Even though that was over 100 years ago, he was well-known as a business and community leader, and in fact he founded several organizations with his name. The town of Carnegie, PA was named after him.
As further proof, Mr. Carnegie grew up with the nickname of "Neggs" which only makes sense because the accent is on the 2nd syllable of his name.
