that's a really big assumption. it could also be because American people are more familiar with french than german, or some other weird factor. also, it doesn't really matter the reason, because languages change according to how people use them, not according to what some online dork gets hung up on because he thinks he knows better. nietzhsche and descartes are both too known to make a claim about the general public's knowledge of their native pronunciations
Sorry for the late reply. IDK what the deal is, but the main site doesn't load when I try going there.
Anyways, German absolutely has changed lol. It literally evolved from the same ancestral language as English and has made plenty of changes that English is conservative on. For example, the English <th> sounds in words like "thorn" and "that" are ancestral (as well as the final /t/ sound), while the German equivalents "Dorn" and "dass" are both less conservative and have altered those <th> and /t/ sounds. Just because Nietzsche is a guy's name doesn't mean it's an exception to language change and people mangling native pronunciation. This is a linguistics thing, not a specifically American thing.
americans absolutely use both of those names to sound smart and say them differently than native speakers, just to a lesser degree. "euripides" is actually a great example of how greek has changed with time, given that they say the <u> as a /v/ and the second <e> as /i/ now. the idea that one group of people pronounces something normally and another doesn't is rooted in the idea that some way of speech is more normal than another, which just isn't correct or even measurable
deleted by creator
That's kind of what it means to be an accepted pronunciation. It's just a regionally accepted one. It may be grating, but that's how language works.
deleted by creator
that's a really big assumption. it could also be because American people are more familiar with french than german, or some other weird factor. also, it doesn't really matter the reason, because languages change according to how people use them, not according to what some online dork gets hung up on because he thinks he knows better. nietzhsche and descartes are both too known to make a claim about the general public's knowledge of their native pronunciations
deleted by creator
Sorry for the late reply. IDK what the deal is, but the main site doesn't load when I try going there.
Anyways, German absolutely has changed lol. It literally evolved from the same ancestral language as English and has made plenty of changes that English is conservative on. For example, the English <th> sounds in words like "thorn" and "that" are ancestral (as well as the final /t/ sound), while the German equivalents "Dorn" and "dass" are both less conservative and have altered those <th> and /t/ sounds. Just because Nietzsche is a guy's name doesn't mean it's an exception to language change and people mangling native pronunciation. This is a linguistics thing, not a specifically American thing.
deleted by creator
americans absolutely use both of those names to sound smart and say them differently than native speakers, just to a lesser degree. "euripides" is actually a great example of how greek has changed with time, given that they say the <u> as a /v/ and the second <e> as /i/ now. the idea that one group of people pronounces something normally and another doesn't is rooted in the idea that some way of speech is more normal than another, which just isn't correct or even measurable
deleted by creator