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Spelling - showing your origins
Pedro Alvarez, in a Quora reply on the mismatch between spelling and pronunciation notes that it all depends on when words of a different language entered English. Many of these apparently irregular words retain the source orthography to correspond to their pronunciation.
You may not agree with every example below but the list is useful and the pattern is clear.
- French <en/em>: ennui, genre, rendezvous, entrée, envoy, entrepreneur, rapprochement, dénouement, contratemps
- French <in>: lingerie, Chopin, meringue
- French <ui>: suite, ennui,
- Italian <ue>: segue
- French <oi>: repertoire, reservoir, memoir, bourgeois, foie gras, Pinot Noir, boudoir, Poincare
- German <eu>: Euler, Reuters, Freud, Deutsche, schadenfreude, von Neumann
- French <g>: genre, -ge words like garage, massage, etc
- French <ch>: champagne, Chevy, Chicago, Michigan,
- German/Dutch <ei>: apartheid, zeitgeist, meister, leitmotif, Alzheimers, Fahrenheit, Meijer, Heineken, Heinz, Reinhardt, stein (Stein, Einstein, Wittgenstein, Steinbeck), Anaheim, Brandeis, Klein, Oppenheimer, all those German names in the states with <ei>.
- Greek <ei>: deixis
- German <ai>: Kaiser
- German <au>: Audi, Gauss, Faustian, sauerkraut, Braun
- French silent t: potpourri, ballet, valet, buffet, gourmet, depot, filet, cabaret, denouement, rapprochement
- French silent s/z: Descartes, debris, rendezvous, chassis, precis, corps, contratemps, Des Moines, IA., Louisville, KY., Lisle, IL., bourgeois, apropos, foie gras, faux pas, viscount
- French <au>: mauve, au pair, all those French phrases start with au.
- French silent p: coup d'état, contratemps, corps, rai·son d'état, etc.
- non-silent final <e$> from different languages: genre, double entendre, epitome, hyperbole, Tempe, Penelope, Yosemite
- <er> words pronounced like those words with <ar>: Derby, sergeant, Berkeley (BrE), Berkshire, Hertford. Check JW Lewis' blog PhonetiBlog for more.
- Italian/French <gn>: poignant, vignette, lasagna, cognac, lagniappe, Sauvignon Blanc, monsignor
- German <tz>, <z>: zeistgeist, ersatz, schizophrenia, quartz, Alzheimers, Hertz, waltz, chutzpah (Yiddish), tzar, blitz, Mozart, Nazi, Leibniz
- Italian <z>: mozzarella, pizza, paparazzi
- Italian <gl>: consigliere, imbroglio
- Spanish <ll>: El Pollo Loco, paella
- Spanish <j>: San Jose, Mission Veijo, Vallejo, cojones, El Cajon, CA., rioja
- Spanish <jVV> where the first V represents a back vowel: marijuana, San Joaquin, San Juan, Juanita
- False etymology (Remembering Latin by inserting letters): silent b--doubt, debt, subtle; silent c--indict, arctic, victuals; silent p--receipt; silent s--island, isle
- Variant pronunciation of vowel digraphs like <ou>/<ow> has to do with the great vowel shift, as it affects historically long vowels, which are usually represented by vowel digraphs like <ee>, <oo>, <ea>, <oa>, <ou>, <ei>, etc.
- Syncope in names: Happisburgh /e?zbr?/, Wymondham /w?nd?m/, -ster Gloucester, Leicester, Leominster /l?mst?/, Featherstonehaugh /fæn???/ (Fanshaw), Cholmondely /t??ml?/, Knollys (pronounced as Knowles), Sandys (pronounced as Sands)
- Pseudoforeignism <a> (keeping low back vowel /?/ for /æ/ or /e?/): Pakistan, Afghanistan, Amman, Czechoslovakia (for /e?/).
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