Marseille!--How is it Pronounced?

[Franek Grabowski]

Going back to the thread's subject, on the old forum it was mentioned one airman who pronounced Marsayleh but it was an exception I think.

[Primoz]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I think the reason with Northern Italy at least is that a big piece of it was once in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and hence places evolved Germanic variants: hence Brunico/Bruneck and Bolzano/Bozen. There are still German-speaking minorities in some of these regions, I believe.

What you mentioned is a specific case. Both Brunico/Bruneck and Bolzano/Bozen lie in the autonomous region of South Tyrol (or Alto Adige as the Italians call it), the latter being the region's capital. South Tyrol has a German speaking majority (over 60%) rather than minority (but of course - globally speaking - they are a minority in Italy).

But on the other hand, in the Middle Ages (and later) German emperors ruled over parts of Italy while Germany and France don't have this kind of common history.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Primoz

What you mentioned is a specific case ... in the Middle Ages (and later) German emperors ruled over parts of Italy while Germany and France don't have this kind of common history.

I thought that was exactly the point I was trying to make.

[Primoz]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I thought that was exactly the point I was trying to make.

Generally speaking you did; but the examples you gave are very specific - both of them were Austrian towns until 1918 with hardly any Italians living there (so the Italian names are variations, not the German ones). Your general idea was correct but I'd like to point out that there was no "Austro-Hungarian Empire" before 1867 and that the Austrian Empire came into being when Napoleon crushed the Holy Roman Empire (and those German names had evolved wayl before that).

[TonyC]

To quote Shakespeare:

"That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet..."

I sense this topic is getting a little heated, so added a spot of culture/kultur