For most of my life it seems that I’ve heard it pronounced PACK-ih-stan, but recently I’ve been hearing POCK-ih-stan a lot in the media. Obama says it that way, among others.
Is this a recent change, or have there always been two pronunciations in general use?
Realizing that there are certainly differences in different nations, this post applys to usage in the US.
I’ve always thought it odd that Obama pronounces it POCK-ih-stahn, but he doesn’t pronounce Afghanistan “Ahf-gahn-ih-stahn.”
Pakistan, unlike Afghanistan, was part of British India, and in both Pakistan and India there remain a large number of people who speak English fluently, usually as a second language but one learned young. They tend to use a ‘British’ pronunciation, with some specialized variants I’m not enough of a linguist to describe. I would expect that a typical Pkistani saying his country’s name in an English-language context would use the broad A (as in Juan) rather than the ‘sharp’ A of rats. (I assume most English speakers sound that vowel the way Jimmy Cagney did, rather than making the word a homophone for rots.)
Whenever I hear someone from the subcontinent say it, it sounds like “Pocky Stonn”
Pronouncing it PACK-ih-stan isn’t remotely as ignorant-sounding as pronouncing it EYE-rack.
PaH-Kiss-Tahn.
Here is a english language documentary from Pakistan (on its military), here the narrators prononciation.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UYGJ-RHGUQ
This is how it’s pronounced by locals.
Obama’s pronunciation is more correct than most Americans, who say PACK-ISS-TAN. Obama’s mother worked in Pakistan for some time, and he visited Pakistan when he was young, which is why I guess he’s familiar with the native pronunciation.
The actual pronunciation of the T in PakisTan is different from how any American says it. Here’s my previous explanation on the dope about it:
And here’s some more trivia: -stan (from Sanskrit) means place, e.g.:
Afghanistan = Place of the Afghanis
Hindustan (India) = Place of the Hindus
Fuck. Here in America we pronounce pretty much anything that originates outside our own country incorrectly. And hell, who’s gonna complain? Most of us go our whole lives without speaking to, or even seeing, a person from another country.
Obama pronounces ‘Pakistan’ more or less correctly. But what about all the other place-names? ‘Pakistan’ is a good start, but how 'bout we just flush all the snooty provincialism and speak like all the rest of the Earthlings?
The American pronunciation is exactly the same as the British one. Even second generation British Pakistanis pronounce Pakistan like the Americans and white British do. It’s not a case of provincialism, IMO. We can’t be expected to learn the local pronunciation of every town, city or country, especially when it involves sounds that are unnatural or uncommon in English.
British people emphasis the last syllable, though – Pa-ki-STAHN or Pa-ki-STAN, whereas Americans seem to say PA-ki-stan or PAH-ki-stahn.
(We’re faced here once again with the problem of people trying to describe pronunciation with the English alphabet, even though the same letters are pronounced differently depending on which variety of English you speak. To me “POCK-i-stan” sounds completely wrong, and is not at all the same as “PAHK-i-stan”, which is what I think the OP means, in my terms. **Polycarp **also uses that O vowel in a way that is confusing to speakers of British English - “rots” does not sound the same as “rahts” when I say it.)
I can do the soft T, as it sounds to me like the t in Tao. But it’s really hard to do after an S.
The men are Pock-ih-men.
I believe the modern use of “Stan” comes directly from Persian, although the word does gave roots in common in other Indo-Iranian languages.
This sort of differential pronunciation is widespread. One parallel that leaps to mind is the American pronunciation of “France.”
:dubious: :smack:
You don’t give your real location, so maybe it’s Under A Rock, but I don’t think I have gone a week without speaking to someone who was born in another country in the last 30 years.
That’s how I say it and how people in my family say it (also we’re actually from there, so…yeah).
Do you guys really go your whole lives without speaking to or seeing a person from another country? Really? I highly doubt that, unless you live under a rock!
I don’t really care that other people call it (Pakistan) by the Westernized pronunciation. I do, however, care when people bitch at me for saying it with the Eastern pronunciation, saying things like “You live in America and you should pronounce it the way we do!” (Has happened.)
It’s happened to Barack Obama too.
That soft T seems to show up in “Rajasthani”, which (my impression is) doesn’t have a theta sound but an aspirated soft T. Correct?
People have bitched at him for saying it the right way?
“Afghani” is another good one. I laughed a couple of years ago at a headline called “Afghans take to the hills.” I just thought it was funny as shit, imagining all of these blankets lumping up and shuffling off to the hills. But I got lectured, saying that all Americans and Westerners and indeed Afghanis and Indians ALL called them Afghans and that Afghans was the only correct term!
Now, I am no linguist. It could be that linguistically Afghan is the correct term (but by whose rules, I wonder?) That doesn’t change the fact that every Afghani I have ever known has called themselves Afghani, and all of the Indians and Pakistanis I know also do.
It’s the lecturing and the “I know better than you” attitude that bothers me. No, you don’t, not necessarily!