this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
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I've internally been saying "eesh eel"
... which now seems like calling it "me earl'
It is pretty close on the pronunciation, except ch is not sh. Unless you're speaking certain regional dialects :)
The closest pronunciation you can get in English is probably eek.
I've only ever met a few native Germans in person, and understand just enough to get to the bathroom, so I don't know if I just misheard, or they're one of the few people who do say it that way.
I'll take any native German's word on their own language though! Lol or even anyone who's studied.
I'm a German native who studied linguistics (ok, computational linguistics with a minor in phonetics and phonology), but I basically only speak my regional dialect well. I was visiting a friend in Berlin once and a stranger in a bar complimented me that I "speak good German for a foreigner".
Hey that sounds like studying linguistics to me! ^Pun^ ^mildly^ ^intended.^
That's gotta be a bit of a gut punch though...
I regarded it as a potential evidence for my unfounded and highly debateable hypothesis that the dialect we speak in the region is not in fact a dialect, but its own language.