--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...> wrote:
> I would
> say that 90% of North Americans pronounce <Giovanni> as [dZi-ov'ani],
> with secondary stress on [dZi], instead of [dZov'ani].
I know that to be completely accurate it should be [dZov'an:i] with
long [n], but most English speakers would not feel it necessary to be
that correct unless they were speaking Italian itself (especially
since we don't have long consonants in our phonology). But we do have
[dZ] so what I'm saying is that we are perfectly capable of
pronouncing [dZov'ani] without [i] after [dZ], as the nearest English
approximation to the Italian, but most of us don't, because of
ignorance of Italian pronunciation rules (and probably a tolerant
attitude on the part of Italian immigrants of the early 20th century,
perhaps even today).
Andrew