Another vote for CHEE-lay.
I’ve always thought it was supposed to be SHEE-LAY, with an sh sound, but I always feel like a doofus saying it, so I often stick with Chilly.
Ugh, “chilly”. Whenever I hear someone (someone obviously American) refer to the country as “chee-lay” it makes my skin crawl. It’s usually a pretentious, know-it-all talking head on cable news but I hear it in real life as well. A word is pronounced differently based on the language and regional dialect in which it is spoken. A spanish-language version of Chile, while spelled the same, isn’t really the same word as an english-language version of Chile.
Yeah, that’s how people that don’t have English as there first or second language might say it; like say, I don’t know, an Argentinian, or whatever. But when they say it that way it’s a natural pronunciation. When Chris Matthews on MSNBC say “Shee-lay” he looks like a fucking moron jackass.
A Spanish “ch” is like the “ch” in church. Not sure where the “sh” pronunciation would come from. French, maybe. I’ve never heard anyone say “SHEE-lay” in my life. My uncle is from Santiago and he says something like “CHEE-leh,” with the “EE” not quite as long as an English “EE”, and the last syllable is definitely NOT an “AY” sound.
That said, in English I say either “chilly” or “chillay.”
Chilly, because I’m English and that is the common English pronunciation.
Just like we say “Germany” and not “Deutschland” and France, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland etc. etc. etc.
There is no “true” pronunciation in English. Countries are called whatever the hell we choose to call them. And the same is true for pronunciation in every single other native language.
If you choose to use another language’s pronunciation then fine, but I’ll think it slightly odd.
Just like chilly, though I know it’s incorrect. However, the “chee chee chee, lay lay lay” chant is awesome. It puts “USA USA” to shame.
Hypercorrection. Hyperforeignism. I hear this all the time and it drives me crazy.
Beizhing instead of Beijing.
Razh instead of Raj.
Shockra instead of cakra.
And now, Shile instead of Chile. Never heard that one, but it sure fits the pattern.
The logic, as it were, seems to run like…
French is a foreign language.
X is a foreign language too.
Ergo, X is pronounced the same as French.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Yes, and it’s usually made with chili powder. Which is (mostly) ground chiles–“CHEE-lays.”
Ki, ki, ki, ma, ma, ma…
I tried to sort all this out one time, and this is what I came up with:
Chili peppers: What’s with the two spellings?
» Chili with an –i, in English, means:
[INDENT]1) The generic designation for all kinds of hot peppers, in the phrase “chili peppers”;
2) Short for chile con carne (or its vegetarian adaptation);
3) The name of a type of sauce or spice blend usually based on chiles ancho, used in Tex-Mex chile con carne. Chili is the anglicized US spelling.[/INDENT]
» [INDENT]Chile with an –e (when it isn’t referring to a South American country) means: 1) Any variety of hot pepper, 2) A dish consisting mainly or entirely of it. This is the Mexican Spanish spelling, and as such I use chile as a more recent loanword from Spanish, while chili is an older loan. The origin of both words is Nahuatl chilli, pronounced “chill lee.”[/INDENT]
I live in Texas & quite a few Texans know how to speak some Spanish. Even the Anglos.
If you know the correct pronunciation, use it. Deliberate ignorance is just another handicap.
Better examples would be, say, Paris and Berlin. They’re spelled the same way in English and French/German, but I don’t say Paree or “Bayre-leen.”
Unless you live in San Antone.
This is kind of interesting. I also say the American affectations of Paris and Berlin (even though I speak German), yet I’m an enthusiastic supporter of “CHEE-lay.” For some reason it sounds like “Chilly” is incorrect.
It’s not “deliberate ignorance” – it’s speaking in the local dialect. It sounds really odd to drop out of an English accent to effect a foreign pronunciation when a common English one will do. For example, my family is Polish, I speak the language, but I pronounce words like Krakow and pierogi and even my last name (Pawinski) in an English manner, even though I am fully aware of how they’re pronounced in the native language.
I heard those rescued miners shout something closer to “TSEE-lay” in their strangely-patriotic-because-what-does-the-country-have-to-do-with-anything cheers. Could “ts” for “ch” be a regional Spanish thing, in part or all of Chile?
Chee-lay. I don’t believe pronouncing something correctly is “pretentious”.
(Although when I was a kid and I first saw it on a map, I rhymed it with “tile”)
Agreed…but I’d caution against using the word ‘correctly’ in this context.
Basically, there are three options:
-
Use some convention that your language has adopted to pronounce the foreign word – often, by using the original foreign spelling, and pronouncing it as if it were a native English word. In this case, e.g., “Chilly”. This option is less commonly used these days than in decades past.
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Pronounce the word pretty much like in the original language, but substituting (when necessary) the nearest equivalent sounds which are native in your language. E.g., “Chee-lay”. This is your preferred option – and, these days, the most common option, I’d wager.
-
Pronounce the word using the original sounds, even if they don’t exist in your language. E.g., “Chee-leh” (no way to express these directly via an English ‘gloss’ – but, as I’m sure you know, there’s no little “yuh” at the end of the “ee”, nor any “yuh” at the end of the “eh”, as we HAVE to do in native English). This option is, obviously, only used by people who have learned the foreign sounds. Unlike option #2, this one can (IMHO) sometimes sound mildly pretentious, in some situations, but this never bothers me, personally.
so you do say “Paree” “Wien” “Koln” etc. etc. ?
You have to define what you mean by “correct” here. “Chilly” is a perfectly correct English pronunciation.