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Spider Jerusalem

(21,786 posts)
16. Bad example
Tue Aug 14, 2012, 01:34 AM
Aug 2012

the English pronunciation of "Paris" is very old. It dates to the medieval era at least and is probably close to the original French pronunciation before various linguistic changes in French. See for instance the following 15th century citations from the OED:

   1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. v. xxxi. in Ashm. (1652) 155 Ther Pauteners be stuffed wyth *Parrys balls.    

   1401 in Frost Notices rel. Hull (1827) App. 3 Pro x dus[enis] *paris crisp.

   1479 Paston Lett. III. 270, iiij *Parys cuppis with a cover.


   1434 in E.E. Wills (1882) 101, 1 towell of *parys werk.


The examples I cited are all much more recent--"baroque" dates to the 17th century in English; Iraq as such was a creation of the early 20th century, Iran was Persia until 1948, and Van Gogh died in 1890. And they're all pronounced "correctly" in every international English dialect outside of North America.

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