Yes on the first point - it’s closer to how the Italians pronounce it. But Parmigiano and Parmesan are not the same word.
The English word “Parmesan” comes from the French word “Parmesan”, which is pronounced, you guessed it, with a s/z sound.
The soft g/j is not more accurate, because it’s a different word. It’s an over-correction.
FWIW, the word was in English nearly a whole century before the first British colony in America. It really is a word that existed and folk in America changed the pronunciation of.
All the southern Italians. I point this out because standard Italian settled on a northern dialect as the standard. So the Italian those immigrants brought has some differences.
Our unique pronunciation comes from Philadelphia, where they use the word “jawn” to mean “thing.” They called it “that parma jawn”, meaning like “that thing from parma” but the j became a zh over time.
All languages and country have all sorts of different historical names for foreign places or things. And that is fine. Except when Americans do it. Well and Germans calling Barcelona “Bazelona”. That’s just not okay.
Huh? You must have heard someone having no idea what they’re talking about. :D
We write it the same as in Spanish… So we have an r sound in there, but typically we don’t roll the r and instead pronounce it like the French. And we’ll pronounce Spanish “c” like a sharp S, but there’s plenty of Spanish and Latin American people doing the same. I have lived in Bogotá, I’m allowed to do this. :D
Always fun how Americans pronounce “parmesan” as “parmezhan”
the original Italian is parmigiano, so a soft g/j sound is actually more accurate than a s/z sound
Yes on the first point - it’s closer to how the Italians pronounce it. But Parmigiano and Parmesan are not the same word.
The English word “Parmesan” comes from the French word “Parmesan”, which is pronounced, you guessed it, with a s/z sound.
The soft g/j is not more accurate, because it’s a different word. It’s an over-correction.
FWIW, the word was in English nearly a whole century before the first British colony in America. It really is a word that existed and folk in America changed the pronunciation of.
I wonder if it came from all the italian immigrants that came over.
All the southern Italians. I point this out because standard Italian settled on a northern dialect as the standard. So the Italian those immigrants brought has some differences.
In our defense, Italians kept coming here and eating Parmesan. It makes sense we’d pronounce it closer to the Italian
Parmezany!
Our unique pronunciation comes from Philadelphia, where they use the word “jawn” to mean “thing.” They called it “that parma jawn”, meaning like “that thing from parma” but the j became a zh over time.
source: I made it up
Unironically though, I do think that is how i say it. It’s parmesan Luc not parmesan Grey.
Yeah, but that’s not unique to Americans or even the English language. In German we write it the same (Parmesan) and pronounce a soft s in that place.
All languages and country have all sorts of different historical names for foreign places or things. And that is fine. Except when Americans do it. Well and Germans calling Barcelona “Bazelona”. That’s just not okay.
Sorry, haven’t seen your reply earlier.
Huh? You must have heard someone having no idea what they’re talking about. :D
We write it the same as in Spanish… So we have an r sound in there, but typically we don’t roll the r and instead pronounce it like the French. And we’ll pronounce Spanish “c” like a sharp S, but there’s plenty of Spanish and Latin American people doing the same. I have lived in Bogotá, I’m allowed to do this. :D
Why, how do you pronounce it?
In a way easily described as dialect?