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Subject:Re: Origin of phonetic alphabet From:Bev Parks <bparks -at- HUACHUCA-EMH1 -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL> Date:Sun, 4 Jun 1995 09:48:49 MST
John Renish wrote-->
> Interesting observation, but completely irrelevant. Look at the word. In
> French (it's origin), it's Kay bek'. In Canadian English, it's Kay bek' or
> Ke bek'. In Spanish, it's Kay bek'. In Italian, it's Kay bek'. In German,
> its normal pronunciation (based on spelling) is Kvay bek', and in American
> English, it's usually Kwe bek'.
> It appears that speakers of Romance languages find it perfectly phonetic and
> that it is an example of how speakers of Germanic languages tend to
> mispronounce unfamiliar Romance language words. Can you suggest a Q-word
> that would satisfy all speakers of European languages, let alone
> non-European languages? For example, Arabic has a similar letter, qaf, that
> is pronounced sort of like a K or G, but in the back of the throat.
=========================
Are you saying that the other words in the phonetic alphabet,
such as charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot, golf, hotel, uniform,
and whiskey, are all pronounced and recognized by all those
languages you mention? Quebec happens to be a proper name
recognized and similarly pronounced in those languages. But
most (though not all, i.e., sierra) of the other words are
*English* words, pronounced in English.
