why do people pronounce the city of miami as "my-am-mee"?

Question

not just because i speak spanish, but it hurts my ear when i hear someone refer to miami as "my-am-mee" there clearly is a letter "i" in there twice(mee-a-mee) . come on, you can do it, you don't have to be latino to say it correctly,lol. can you say Colorado, yup. what about San Diego(sandy eggo), you would never say (san die-go). same goes for french. jean pierre(john pee-air) of course you know all of this..um.. hopefully. pronoucing miami correctly will not make you look like a moron just because you are not latino or a spanish speaker for some it is actually attactive to put a little accent to certain words(wink wink, call me...).

great job viet,lol, pretty funny

mr.taco, i get your point, but how would pronoucing it like a native american be any better than prounouncing it like a latino , since you're white?

viet , you seem to be the only person who gets the point of my question. everyone else is way to the right. the point of my question is the spur debate on the tomato/tomato issue, who decides how we pronounce these words. history or trend or immigrants?

Answer 1

I suppose it's an American thing, like pronoucing vitamin [vytamin]. To go one step further, when a word should be pronounced with a [y] sound (using your phonetics, it's sometimes ignored altogether such that missile [missyl] ends up sounding like a prayer book.

I wouldn't get too hung up on it - why do Americans pronounce the state of Florida as if it were written Flórida? Because it doesn't sound 'English' if the accent is on the second syllable. Do you say [paree] or [paris] for Paris? The French would argue that they hardly ever pronounce terminal 's', but people would think you were affected if you said it the French way when speaking English.

I thought it cute when asked on the underground the other day by a Spanish girl "This train - it goes to [lay-thay-stair-esquarray] - Leicester Square. ¡Viva la diferencia! - como decimos en francés...

Answer 2

There is also a Miami, Oklahoma. It is pronounced "my-am-uh". It depends on not only the origins of the word, but how the NATIVES pronounce it. The accepted pronounciation of the city in Florida is "my-am-ee" to pronounce it another way (especially if you don't already have a natural accent) will cause to people to look at you funny and think that you are an arrogant jackass.

Answer 3

miami wasnt a word that originated from the latin community. theres a miami in ohio i believe... when referring to yourself you dont spell it as "mi" its "me" so you would pronounce it (mee-a-mee) if it was spelled meame. Remember in the english language, alot of letters and words are pronounced different.... psychology... why would you spell it like that if youre not going to use the P? You should know this, unless you were born out of the country.

Im 100% cuban but just cuz I am cuban doesnt mean I want everything pronounced in spanish... im from miami and i am surrounded by people that say meeamee but thats cuz the I in spanish is pronounced that way and most of the hispanics here cant speak english.

an accent is cute but knowing how to speak proper english will make you money in this country.

Answer 4

Actually, it is called my-am-mee because that it how it is pronounced. It isn't a Spanish word. It is a Native American word. That in mind, I have no motivation to pronounce it differently. To say mee-am-mee WOULD make me sound like a moron. Being a white dude, I can't blame my accent for it. I would simply be saying it wrong. Besides, even if it was originally pronounced mee-am-mee, it just isn't anymore. Language changes. It evolves. Words change. They evolve. When the vast majority of people pronounce something a certain way, then that is how it is officially pronounced. You can say it differently if you want, and that is fine, but that does not make everyone else wrong. Besides, even the dictionary shows it as being pronounced my-am-mee.

Answer 5

The word comes from the name of an Indian tribe rather than Spanish

I come from Chicago, and you can tell whether people are native or not by how they say this word which refers to a rather pungent smelling wild onion in the local Algonquian dialect. The value of the a (almost an aw) is different and the i is shorter and clipped. It helps if you hold your nose while saying it because it means "stink". You also can tell what part of Illinois a native is from by whether they pronounce the s at the end and the value they give to the oi diphthong. Language is about communication not rigid rules of pronunciation, or even which language is used for God's sakes. Abraham Lincoln said it's a piss poor brain can only think of one way to spell a word, same goes for pronunciation. My brother and I learned Spanish from different teachers, mine Castiilan, his Mexican, we don't say many Spanish words the same way, nor should we. The same goes for our German, mine is Prussian, his the softer southern dialect. Do you wear your hair the same way as everyone around you? Why should you sound like them?

[obviously JJ's interrogator had my Spanish teach rather than my brother's]

Answer 6

It's just an English thing. Like what's a die? The plural of die is dice. But die means the opposite of born and dice means to slash something etc,

Mee-am-mee sounds ok but it's just what Americans have adopted. You never hear many Americans pronounce the Vietnamese right ? lol. Vietnam is spelt Viet Nam lol. Anyways, why do so many Latinos sound...homo? No offense but it sorta makes me...want to....d/w lol =) wink

¿Que

I guess some people think Mie-Am-Mee sounds better. Lmao El Pueblo de nuestra señora la reina de los angeles del rio de porciúncula?

Answer 7

MIAMI is named after the NATIVE TRIBAL NATION of that same name. The name is derived from that word. These people speak Illinois-Miami a language form the Algonquin group. The word Miami is derived from "Myaamia" meaning ally. Therefore, pronouncing it, "my-am-mee is in fact the correct way.

Answer 8

OOOO, I hate to bust your bubble but the name "Miami" is from the Algonquin Indian language and is a name the people in the area gave to themselves....the roots of the name is from the Algonquin word Myaamia or Myaamiaki. It is not Spanish.

The Iroquoise called them after their name for a local crane, in their language - Twau Twau...This was as a result of a war between the Miami and Cherokee tribes where the Cherokee said the Miami people "disappeared like birds".

The Ojiibwa people referred to these Indians in their own language and called them "Omamik", the French referred to them by another form of the word and called them "Oumamik".

Spanish is a beautiful language and one that is easily learned by anyone who is interested. My grandson, who is 16, speaks it fluently and has been studying the language for 6 years....and no, he's not Hispanic.

I speak a rather crude "street Spanish" that isn't always correct but has managed to get me around many of the Spanish speaking countries of the world - and Italy, which has a very similar language.

Answer 9

It's just a translation thing. There are a lot of Spanish cities/countries that the English language pronounced differently. For example, Mexico. If you speak Spanish, it Me-ji-co. But in English it's Mex-i-co. L.A. is the same.

Answer 10

In the English language, the letter "I" is pronounced long (eye). Versus in the Spanish lanuguage the letter "I" is pronounced "eeeeee". Your in America. So, pronounce in the English lanugage. When you say it as mee-a-mee, most will look at you dumb cuz you're in America. Same goes for Cuba. Americans pronounce it "Q-bu". Latinos/as pronounce it "coo-ba". Depends on where you are.