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Author Topic: Caribbean  (Read 2820 times)

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Offline Tante Shvester

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« on: September 02, 2008, 09:07:13 PM »
There was the Caribbean Day parade here in New York, and they were interviewing participants on the radio.  Now, I never know if I ought to pronounce it "Ca-RIB-ee-yan" or "Ca-rib-BEE-yan", so I was listening to hear how people from that area said it.  I heard a really interesting distinction.  A guy they were interviewing said something like, "This is a wonderful day for all the CaRIBeeyan people to come together as one, no matter what part of the CariBEEyan they come from."

So, I guess Ca-RIB-ee-yan is the people and Ca-rib-BEE-yan is the place.
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Offline The Genuine

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« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2008, 10:21:42 PM »
Of the two, I pronounce it the way that sounds more like the Spanish origin.
I think Jesse's right.

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« Reply #2 on: September 03, 2008, 04:28:18 PM »
Which way would that be?

I'm not aware of any distinction based on pronunciation, except that the phrase "pirates of the Caribbean" seems to always receive penultimate stress rather than antepenultimate.
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Offline The Genuine

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« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2008, 05:20:28 PM »
Quote
Which way would that be?
The Spanish word for Carribean is Caribe, which has the major accent on the i, so I pronounce Carribean with the major accent on the i ("Ca-RIB-ee-yan").

Is that penultimate or antepenultimate?
I think Jesse's right.

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« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2008, 06:21:03 PM »
The latter.

antepenultimate = before next to last

I wonder how the adjective form of caribe is accented in Spanish. Just because the stress is in one spot in the noun form doesn't mean it'll be in the same spot when you add an ending to the word.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2008, 06:23:51 PM by Jonathon »
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Offline The Genuine

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« Reply #5 on: September 03, 2008, 07:00:06 PM »
The general rule is that if it ends in a vowel, the penultimate vowel gets the accent.  If it ends in a noun, the ultimate vowel gets the accent.  To that end, I am not aware of any difference between nouns and adjectives.

In Spanish, you wouldn't add the "an" to turn it into an adjective; rather, you'd say "del Caribe."

So I'm inclined to think that the accent should remain where the Spaniards would put it, despite the "an" the English tacked onto it, since the Spaniards would never add that "an."
I think Jesse's right.

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« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2008, 07:36:21 PM »
I don't see the logic in that at all. When a word is borrowed from one language into another, it generally changes to fit the borrowing language's phonology, including stress. If the word takes an English suffix, then it's an English word and should not be beholden to the phonological rules of another language, especially if you're talking about the root word in one language and a derived form in another. It's apples and oranges in two different ways.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2008, 08:54:09 PM »
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I'm not aware of any distinction based on pronunciation, except that the phrase "pirates of the Caribbean" seems to always receive penultimate stress rather than antepenultimate.
And I've always heard it the other way.  Maybe it's a regional thing, then.  That's why I paid close attention to they way the the locals there were saying it.
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Offline Neutros the Radioactive Dragon

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« Reply #8 on: September 04, 2008, 09:15:07 AM »
I stress the "i" because that is the way Ricardo Montalban would say it.

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Offline The Genuine

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« Reply #9 on: September 04, 2008, 10:16:50 AM »
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I stress the "i" because that is the way Ricardo Montalban would say it.
That's essentially the point I was trying to make.
I think Jesse's right.

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Offline Annie Subjunctive

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« Reply #10 on: September 04, 2008, 11:12:46 AM »
Just off the top of my head (ear?), it sounds to me like caRIBbean is the British pronunciation, while CARibBEan is American. Is that true at all in the way the two dialects treat syllable stress, or is that just me?

And even though I find British pronunciations of foreign words horribly tacky-sounding, I think in this case the American-sounding stress is even worse. So I say caRIBbean, unless I'm talking about the Pirates.
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« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2008, 08:24:57 PM »
Quote
Quote
I'm not aware of any distinction based on pronunciation, except that the phrase "pirates of the Caribbean" seems to always receive penultimate stress rather than antepenultimate.
And I've always heard it the other way.  Maybe it's a regional thing, then.  That's why I paid close attention to they way the the locals there were saying it.
I'm quite surprised to hear that. Also, it contradicts this note in the Wikipedia article on "Caribean." (Of course, there's no source for the claims made in the note, but they do match up with my experience.)

Quote
Just off the top of my head (ear?), it sounds to me like caRIBbean is the British pronunciation, while CARibBEan is American. Is that true at all in the way the two dialects treat syllable stress, or is that just me?

What makes you say that? I've always heard both pronunciations pretty interchangeably, so I have a hard time seeing why anyone would assume there's some sort of regional difference involved.

There are some differences in stress between British and American English, but I'm not sure exactly what they all are or how systematic they are.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2008, 09:14:13 PM »
I asked a few people around here, "Is it Pirates of the CaRIBean, or Pirates of the CaribBEEan?"

Four out of five went with the former.
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« Reply #13 on: September 07, 2008, 11:34:44 AM »
That's a pretty small sample size.
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Offline Porter

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« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2008, 01:46:05 PM »
If the pronunciations are really interchangeable, they might be picking the first one simply because they heard it first and it sounded right.
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Offline Tante Shvester

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« Reply #15 on: September 07, 2008, 01:53:04 PM »
Quote
That's a pretty small sample size.
Not only that, three of the five people were myself, my son, and my husband.


I didn't claim that it was a valid, scientific survey.

And, anyway, it is the exact same sample size that the Trident people used when they asked dentists if they recommended sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum.
Fighting thread drift with guilt, reverse psychology, and chicken soup.
Sweet! Law of Moses loopholes! -- Anneke
I love Bones.  -- Sweet Clementine
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Offline pooka

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« Reply #16 on: September 07, 2008, 04:18:28 PM »
I'm surprised no one has tried to argue that it only has 3 syllables.  Of course, my mother is not part of this conversation.  Nor is Billy Ocean.
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Offline Noemon

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« Reply #17 on: September 08, 2008, 06:25:21 AM »
They could both be lurking, though.
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