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A hyperforeignism is a type of hypercorrection where speakers identify an inaccurate pattern in loanword from a foreign language and then apply that pattern to other loanwords (either from the same language or a different one). This results in a pronunciation of those loanwords which does not reflect the rules of either language. For example, the in habanero chili is pronounced as in Spanish, but English-speakers often pronounce it as , as if the word were spelled habañero.
Hyperforeignisms can manifest in a number of ways, including the application of the spelling or pronunciation rules of one language to a word borrowed from another.
Intentional hyperforeignisms can be used for comedic effect, such as pronouncing Report with a silent in The Colbert Report or pronouncing Target as , as though it were an upscale boutique. This form of hyperforeignism is a way of poking fun at those who earnestly adopt foreign-sounding pronunciations of pseudo-Loanword.
Legal English is replete with words derived from Norman French, which for a long time was the language of the courts in England and Wales. The correct pronunciation of Norman French is often closer to a natural contemporary English reading than to modern French: the attempt to pronounce these phrases as if they were modern French could therefore be considered to be a hyperforeignism. For example, the clerk's summons "Oyez!" ("Attention!") is commonly pronounced ending in a consonant, or .
A common pattern is pronouncing French loanwords without a word-final , as with derrière, peignoir, and répertoire. This is actually permissible (especially in informal contexts) in French for words like quatre and fenêtre, where the /r/ follows a consonant, but not for words such as derrière, peignoir, and répertoire, where the /r/ follows a vowel and must be pronounced. For infinitives ending in /er/, such as aimer and parler, the /r/ is never pronounced. In Metropolitan French /r/ is optional as a word ending, whereas the vowel just in front of it is always long, contrasting with vowels being almost always short in word-ending positions.With the notable exception of pronouns/possessives on/mon/ton/son but not nouns ton/son; as there are no words ending in -onr(e), those 4 cases cannot cause ambiguity.
Another common pattern, influenced by French morphophonology, is the omission of word-final consonants. Hyperforeign application of this tendency occurs with omission of these consonants in words with final consonants that are pronounced in French. This occurs notably in the term coup de grâce, in which some speakers omit the final consonant , although it is pronounced in French as ; omitting this consonant instead sounds like coup de gras, meaning a nonsensical "blow of fat." Other examples of this include Vichyssoise.
Speakers of American English typically pronounce lingerie .
Patrizia Giampieri observed that many pseudo-English words can be found in Italian language, such as autostop (hitch-hike) and flipper (pinball machine).Giampieri, Patrizia (2013), "A taxonomy of English hyperforeignisms and borrowings in the Italian language: when communication breakdown occurs." pp. 7–8 Perception of English as a prestige language among some Italian speakers may explain the popularity of hyperforeign vocabulary items such as these.Giampieri, Patrizia (2013), "A taxonomy of English hyperforeignisms and borrowings in the Italian language: when communication breakdown occurs." p. 7
| + Hyperforeignisms in Malay and Indonesian !Malay/Indonesian word !Hyperforeign spelling !Etymology | ||
| beda 'difference' | beza (standard in Malay) | From Sanskrit bhēda |
| surga 'heaven' | syurga (standard in Malay) | From Sanskrit svarga |
| pihak 'side' | fihaq | Of Malayo-Polynesian origin (cognate with Iban language piak 'side' and Hiligaynon pihak 'to cut in half'
/ref> |
Polish loanwords from Japanese are often subject to hyperforeignism. The names of three of the four main islands of Japan, Honsiu, Kiusiu, and Shikoku, are already Polish transcriptions with close approximations of Japanese sounds—, , and —but are often pronounced with changing native into foreign . Other Japanese words use English-based (Hepburn) transcriptions, which causes further problems.
Phenian, a now obsolete Polish name for Pyongyang, which was a transcription of Russian Пхеньян, is commonly pronounced , as if ⟨ph⟩ represented the voiceless labiodental fricative (/f/) like in words of Greek origin.
The letter c in the surname Henryk Arctowski makes the sound , but many people mispronounce it with because of the mistaken assumption the word is of English/Latin origin and derived from the term Arctic, while it actually comes from the German Artzt. When the name was transliterated into other languages that use different scripts, some languages follow the correct pronunciation (Russian Арцтовский, Ukrainian Арцтовський, Azeri Artstovski (this one uses Latin but nonetheless transliterated), Armenian Արցտովսկի, Chinese 阿茨托夫斯基 or 阿爾茨托夫斯基), others use the faux-English pronunciation (Egyptian Arabic اركتوسكى, Standard Arabic أركتوسكي, Tamil ஆர்க்டோவ்சுகி), while some use a yet another mispronunciation (Japanese アルツトウスキー, which contains the correct sound but includes the incorrectly anglicized ending with ow pronounced as in place of and the very English-style lengthened .) An important note is that the /k/ mistransliteration is not caused by the lack of the phoneme in certain languages – in other loanwords with , either a combination of and letters or a "flattening" to a plain would be expected, not the sound which is relatively far off and completely unjustified.
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