# POCK-ih-stan or PACK-ih-stan? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 10, 2010, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863 "2010-05-10T02:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/41 "2010-05-11T00:18:08Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Well, I’m an American and it’s pretty discernible to me. It practically sounds like “Afhwanistan”. Then I guess I’ve never heard it pronounced that way. Do you have a sound clip I can listen to? ---
**Author:** ![Visual\_Purple](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5daacb/32.png) [@Visual\_Purple](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Visual_Purple)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/42 "2010-05-11T00:52:58Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > There are times when I find the “American” pronunciation of foreign places absolutely grating (eye-ran, eye-rack)… . The cited pronunciation is a huge cultural marker. Although I have heard it from uneducated people, it seems to be most used by people who are afraid of being called elitist. Thus, I think it’s not so much a naturally evolved pronunciation so much as pseudo-folksy. It’s thus the exact opposite of the pretension of de-anglicizing standard pronunciations (i.e., an Anglo who insists on MAY hee ko for Mexico). ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/43 "2010-05-11T01:08:20Z")
> [@xash](#): > > Then I guess I’ve never heard it pronounced that way. Do you have a sound clip I can listen to? Uh…no? I’ll see if I can dig something up, but I’m not sure on where to look. Um, wait here, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/44 "2010-05-11T01:27:04Z")
> [@xash](#): > > Then I guess I’ve never heard it pronounced that way. Do you have a sound clip I can listen to? Afghan President Hamid Karzai [says it the way you do.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CBfrOpJdBE) Good enough for me. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/45 "2010-05-11T01:34:45Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > This sort of differential pronunciation is widespread. One parallel that leaps to mind is the American pronunciation of “France.” How do the British pronounce it? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/46 "2010-05-11T01:35:53Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > 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. > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > :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. > [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > OK. You are not part of the “most of us” I was speaking of. Come on, really? I’ve lived over half my life in one of the whitest states in the US and even I’ve known plenty of people over the years who were born outside the US. I currently have coworkers from India, Nepal, and South Africa. I’ll be honest, I don’t care how we pronounce the names of other countries, I just wish that people who are in the media could be consistent. I wandered into the living room a few months ago when NEC was on, and the woman was talking about i-rock. It took me a second to figure out she meant Iraq, not an upcoming offering from Apple to rival Rockband. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/47 "2010-05-11T01:47:40Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Afghan President Hamid Karzai [says it the way you do.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CBfrOpJdBE) > > Good enough for me. I am from Pakistan, though I left when I was 19. I did have a couple of Pathan friends, travelled some in the Northern Areas and there were lots of Pathans in Karachi, where I lived. There are a huge number of dialects, and the two pronounciations are both approximately correct. Though you would never pronounce the “gh” quite as the sound in “ghost”. Somewhere between that and the sound of just “g” in gone. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/48 "2010-05-11T01:51:45Z")
You can hear “Afghanistan” pronounced about 4 seconds into [This video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOYbtKvS9u4). People speaking English that I’ve heard will say it something like that all the way up to the way Karzai says it on “Meet The Press”. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/49 "2010-05-11T01:55:27Z")
I love it. People bitched about Bush saying nucular because it made him sound like a hick, and people bitch about Pockistan because it makes Obama sound elitist. It’s all vowels, anyway. They’re malleable. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/50 "2010-05-11T01:58:37Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > I am from Pakistan, though I left when I was 19. I did have a couple of Pathan friends, travelled some in the Northern Areas and there were lots of Pathans in Karachi, where I lived. > > There are a huge number of dialects, and the two pronounciations are both approximately correct. Though you would never pronounce the “gh” quite as the sound in “ghost”. Somewhere between that and the sound of just “g” in gone. And I’ve never noticed a difference between gone and ghost. (Well, actually, goes and ghost. Since /o/ is more close than /ɔ/, the consonant before the former is slightly more palatalized.) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/51 "2010-05-11T02:14:07Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > A more technical term for the different ‘t’ sounds is _dental_ and _retroflex_. The ‘soft t’ is dental, because the tongue starts at the teeth. Retroflex means the tongue is curled back. The English (at least American, as far as I know) ‘t’ sound is closer to the retroflex, though it’s said to be a bit further back in Urdu and similar languages. > > One slightly difficult bit (at least for me as an English native speaker) is that even when full transliteration indications are used, the unadorned ‘t’ is the dental. Retroflex t commonly uses a t with a dot below ( ṭ ). The IPA symbol is ʈ . > > **Polycarp** , Rajasthan is indeed राजस्थान, which has the aspirated dental t (थ), and not theta. Oh, so I was going the wrong direction with my interpretation. I was thinking the difference was in aspiration. You know, the difference between a whispered /d/ and /t/. This sounds closer to the difference between the Spanish and American /d/. Oh, and I wouldnt’ call the American /t/ retroflex, but alveolar. The tip of the tonguge touches not the teeth, but the alveolar ridge just above and behind them. To me, retroflex has to at least go back to the palate. Also, I believe Scottish uses a hard version of the dental /t/ instead of /θ/ (th in thin). ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/52 "2010-05-11T02:18:54Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > You can hear “Afghanistan” pronounced about 4 seconds into [This video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOYbtKvS9u4). People speaking English that I’ve heard will say it something like that all the way up to the way Karzai says it on “Meet The Press”. Thank you! This is just what I was thinking of. I think Karzai might be changing it up when he speaks English, but I’m not sure. Karzai is Pashtun, and the video in that link is in Dari, so…I don’t know if it’s precisely the same in both languages. All right, I’m in over my head in this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/53 "2010-05-11T18:17:53Z")
**TheMightyAtlas** said: > [@](#): > > There are a huge number of dialects, and the two pronounciations are both approximately correct. Though you would never pronounce the “gh” quite as the sound in “ghost”. Somewhere between that and the sound of just “g” in gone. 😕 I don’t pronounce the “guh” in ghost any differently than the “guh” in goes or gone. **xash** said: > [@](#): > > ghirardelli I don’t think that’s English. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/54 "2010-05-11T18:34:06Z")
See, this is the problem with these pronunciation threads. It drives me crazy. No one ever knows what anyone else is talking about because no one uses IPA. The ver title of this thread drives me up the wall, because it’s obviously written by someone who merges all the low vowels. PACK-ih-stan - [pækɨstæn] (pack, rhyming with tack, stack, back, etc.) - nope, don’t say it that way POCK-ih-stan - to me would be [pɒkɨstæn] - a low, back rounded vowel (rhyming with talk, balk, walk) - nope, don’t say it that way either The actual pronunciation that the OP is trying to get at is [pakist̪ʰan] - it’s the ahhhh vowel, not the “pock” vowel. ([t̪ʰ] is an aspirated dental plosive; it’s not [θ], like in “thing,” which is a nonsibilant dental fricative) > [@Irishman](#): > > I don’t pronounce the “guh” in ghost any differently than the “guh” in goes or gone. MightyAtlas is talking about Indian English, so you wouldn’t get it. In South Asian languages, consonants can be aspirated and nonaspirated, and this is a phonemic distinction. So South Asians who speak English apply their own notions of phonemes and tend to differentiate. So, for example, “gost” and “ghost” would be pronounced differently [gost] vs. [ɡʱost]. “Afghanistan” has multiple pronunciations across South Asia. I pronounce it [apʰganist̪ʰan] - the aspiration is on the “p” and the “t” but not on the “g.” ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/55 "2010-05-11T21:58:33Z")
**acsenray** said: > [@](#): > > See, this is the problem with these pronunciation threads. It drives me crazy. No one ever knows what anyone else is talking about because no one uses IPA. Well yes, but many of us don’t know IPA. We don’t know the technical terms some of you folks are throwing around (nonsibilant dental fricative, aspirated dental plosive). We just know “that doesn’t sound right”. Sound files would help, but not everyone has access. (Youtube blocked at work.) **acsenray** said: > [@](#): > > POCK-ih-stan - to me would be [pɒkɨstæn] - a low, back rounded vowel (rhyming with talk, balk, walk) - nope, don’t say it that way either POCK doesn’t rhyme with talk, balk, walk because there is an “l” in those other words. Try lock, stock, block. To me, that sounds like lahk stahk blahk Pahk’ ih stahn vs. Pak’ ee stan Ahf gahn’ ih stahn vs. Af gan’ ee stan But that probably doesn’t clarify because I’m not using IPA. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/56 "2010-05-11T22:14:04Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > POCK doesn’t rhyme with talk, balk, walk because there is an “l” in those other words. Try lock, stock, block. To me, that sounds like > > lahk > stahk > blahk > Pahk’ ih stahn vs. Pak’ ee stan > > Ahf gahn’ ih stahn vs. Af gan’ ee stan > > But that probably doesn’t clarify because I’m not using IPA. A _silent_ “l”. All of those words you listed there, from POCK to block, rhyme to me. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/57 "2010-05-11T23:16:59Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Well yes, but many of us don’t know IPA. IPA is easy to learn. An hour of study will bring a lifetime of joy. I’d really suggest that anyone interested in pronunciation should learn it. It really approaches nonsense to try to do without it. > [@](#): > > We just know “that doesn’t sound right”. You can’t know that it doesn’t sound right, because you’re not hearing anything on a text-based interface. > [@](#): > > POCK doesn’t rhyme with talk, balk, walk because there is an “l” in those other words. Try lock, stock, block. To me, that sounds like As I said, your accent has merged the low vowels. To me, the vowel in lock, stock, block, etc., is nothing like “ah.” To me, the “short O” and the “ah” sounds are completely different. (And I would advise you to forget you ever heard of “short” and “long” vowels.) On the other hand, my accent merges the cot and caught vowels, which is why you distinguish between “talk” and “tock” but I don’t. See, this will keep going round and round, because there is no way to use these techniques to explain pronunciation to someone who speaks in a different accent. > [@](#): > > But that probably doesn’t clarify because I’m not using IPA. There’s no better way than to start using it. These sites are good places to begin: > **[vowels](https://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/vowels.html)** > **[AUE: ASCII IPA (combined)](http://www.alt-usage-english.org/ipa/ascii_ipa_combined.html)** > **[International Phonetic Alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet)** > > The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation for the sounds of speech. The IPA is used by linguists, lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators. > The IPA is designed to represent those qualities... There are audio samples available on these pages. Some general hints for general American accents (when IPA symbols are unavailable, the ASCII IPA is given in parentheses)– meet [mit] mitt [mɪt] ([mIt]) mate [meɪt] ([meIt]) met [mɛt] ([mEt]) mat [mæt] ([m&t]) moot [mut] mute [mjut] moat [moʊt] ([moUt]) mutt [mʌt] ([mVt]) foot [fʊt] ([fUt]) The low and low-back vowels are very hard to get through, because there’s almost no common ground to talk about them in the context of American accents. This is where it’s very important to use IPA and also takes a little bit of puzzling out. low-front unrounded - [a] - this sound is rarely heard in American accents outside of New England. Think of the way a Bostonian says “car park” [ka pak]. low-central unrounded - [a] - technically, it should be written as [ä], but the other one is so rare that the diacritic is generally dispensed with. - this is what I consider the AH sound. Someone once referred to it as “God’s own AH.” It’s open and low. low-back unrounded - [ɑ] ([A]) - this is the sound you often hear in American “probably” [prɑbəbli] ([prAb@bli]) and “father” [fɑ:ðɚ] ([fAD@r]). However, this isn’t universal. In my accent, it’s [prɒbəbli] ([prA.b@bli]) and [faðɚ] ([faD@r]). low-back rounded - [ɒ] ([A.]) - this is the “hot” sound in British RP. It also appears here and there all over the U.S. Vowel mergers: Father-bother: If your accent distinguishes them, it’s likely [fɑːðɚ] and [bɒðɚ]. If they sound the same, it’s probably [fɑːðɚ] and [bɑːðɚ] Low-back (cot-caught) merger: If your accent distinguishes them, it’s likely [kɒt] and [kɔt]. This page has a ton of information on vowel mergers and splits in modern English - [English-language vowel changes before historic /r/ - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_r) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/58 "2010-05-12T01:57:20Z")
Now do Caribbean. JFK changed the pronunciation of that while he was in office. Most thought it was due to his funny Bostonian accent. But it caught on . It was Care a be an .Then became Ca ribb ean. What is correct? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/59 "2010-05-12T02:47:10Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > JFK changed the pronunciation of that while he was in office. I doubt this is true, but if anyone’s got documentation on it, that would be interesting. > [@](#): > > It was Care a be an .Then became Ca ribb ean. What is correct? Both and neither. West Indian English dialects (and, indeed, South Asian ones too) depend much less on the use of syllabic stress for meaning than other varieties of English. So the native pronunciation is probably something like [ka ri bi ən], with stress moving according to “emotional” requirements. Transferring it to American English, it comes out either [kə 'rɪ bi ən] or [kæ rə 'bi ən] … both are equally close to the native pronunciation. Pick your poison. The same thing happens with Hiroshima. I’ve seen people getting into tussles over whether it should be pronounced [hi ro 'shi mə] or [hi 'ro shə mə]. Compared to the native pronuncation, they’re equally right and wrong. One thing that does bug me though is pronunciation of Moscow as [mɒskoʊ] instead of [mɒskaʊ]. I don’t know how that happened. There _is_ a “cow” in Moscow. The English version comes from German Moskau. [mɒskoʊ] is no closer to the native Moskva, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2010, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863/60 "2010-05-12T06:23:30Z")
And if you want help typing IPA, here’s a good [website](http://ipa.typeit.org/) (at least for English). I use it every time I need a “funny” IPA symbol. It also suggest the best fonts to use. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pock-ih-stan-or-pack-ih-stan/538863.md?page=4)