Before I heard Arnold pronounce “California” the way he does I never heard it said that way. However, with him being Governor of that state now, is his pronunciation the official way to say the word “California” in reference to the state?
There is no “official” pronunciation. But because it was taken from a 17th century Spanish novel, it should be pronounced “cah-lee-FOR-nee-ah” (roughly, ASCII IPA would be: /kalifornia/. Most Californians say “ca-lih-FOR-nyuh” (/k&lIfornjV/)
Hijack:
I was stationed in Massachussetts for 6 months and never did learn to pronounce it to suit the locals, and oddly, just calling ‘one of those damn yankee states’ wasn’t good enough.