Re: French phonetics

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...>
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Arnaud Fournet
> <fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:
>
> > Does Francesco exist in Spanish? That may explain -s-.
>
> Sure, it exists in Spanish and in much of Latin America, Francesco
> and Francesca are more common than Francisca and Francisco.
> Giovanni -- in a hundred different spellings -- is extremely common.
> Italian, Arabic and American names are extremely popular there.

Of course, you are here pointing to a by-product of the massive
Italian immigration into to Latin America (especially to Brasil,
Argentina, Venezuela) which took place during the first half of the
20th century. Indeed, the Spaniards (of Europe) don't use these
Italian forms of the name, and they only know of Franciscos and
Franciscas.

Therefore, no Spanish influence can, in my opinion, be traced in the
French pronunciation of Francesco with [s] or, at best, with [s^].

The problem is, in case, the lack of the [ts^] phoneme in French.

Regards,
Francesco