The standard pronunciation is cog-no-SHEN-ti. American English adapts a great number of accents and pronunciation traits from other languages that appear nowhere else in English (such as façade) but the Italian gn is not generally one of them. It's why no one can pronounce gnocchi.
I have a habit—good or bad, I’m not sure—of pronouncing French/Spanish/Italian words as native speakers would, or at least something close to that. It’s especially confusing with French (my college major), as I find it difficult to say the Americanized version of some French words (e.g., croissant, crêpe, salade Niçoise—hmm, all food terms).
My knowledge of Italian is limited, but I’ve always thought that speaking Italian is like speaking French with a Spanish accent (speaking Portuguese is the opposite). I would have studied linguistics in college, had I been aware of it as a field. 🙂
I think ÑO-key is good; perhaps ÑAW-ki is better. Italian has at least two sounds each (called open and closed) for /a/ and for /o/. Every time I think I understand it, I run across the situation where clearly I don’t.
We have similar interests in this respect: I wish I’d found a way to live off my love of languages, especially comparative language analysis. There’s an Instagram account called Linguistic Discovery that has a lot of interesting topics. I was vaguely aware of linguistics when I was in college (much earlier than when you were in college, but after fire had been invented) I discovered rhetoric as a topic far too late in my studies to do anything with it. Coulda shoulda woulda.
Happy 89th to your Dad. I hope he’s doing well! Have a happy rest of your Summer.
Happy Birthday Tony!! You both look great!
How is cognoscenti pronounced in “American?” I can’t hear it except with the ñ sound.
The standard pronunciation is cog-no-SHEN-ti. American English adapts a great number of accents and pronunciation traits from other languages that appear nowhere else in English (such as façade) but the Italian gn is not generally one of them. It's why no one can pronounce gnocchi.
Hmm. I pronounce that as ÑO-key.
I have a habit—good or bad, I’m not sure—of pronouncing French/Spanish/Italian words as native speakers would, or at least something close to that. It’s especially confusing with French (my college major), as I find it difficult to say the Americanized version of some French words (e.g., croissant, crêpe, salade Niçoise—hmm, all food terms).
My knowledge of Italian is limited, but I’ve always thought that speaking Italian is like speaking French with a Spanish accent (speaking Portuguese is the opposite). I would have studied linguistics in college, had I been aware of it as a field. 🙂
I think ÑO-key is good; perhaps ÑAW-ki is better. Italian has at least two sounds each (called open and closed) for /a/ and for /o/. Every time I think I understand it, I run across the situation where clearly I don’t.
We have similar interests in this respect: I wish I’d found a way to live off my love of languages, especially comparative language analysis. There’s an Instagram account called Linguistic Discovery that has a lot of interesting topics. I was vaguely aware of linguistics when I was in college (much earlier than when you were in college, but after fire had been invented) I discovered rhetoric as a topic far too late in my studies to do anything with it. Coulda shoulda woulda.
ÑAW-ki. Grazie. ☺️
New question, apropos* of your recent travel: Any plans to take Matthew on a plane flight?
*I had to look that up, as I wanted to spell it like the original French.