Re: [sv] pistasch

Helmut Richter wrote:

I am just trying to identify the languages on a bag of pistachios
before I eat them. The most surprising was "pistasch" which I
identified as Swedish. Now my question: How is it pronounced? As a
German, I would pronounce it with [S] but I have never seen -sch- in
Swedish words before.

Swedish doesn't have [S], so when they borrow words with [S] from English, French, or German, they use their nearest equivalent, namely [s.] (retroflex "s").

Presumably they borrowed French <pistache> and respelled it. But the usual Swedish <sj> or <skj> for [s.] never occurs at the end of a word and would look too weird. The spelling <ch> is not uncommon for this sound in words borrowed from French, though only initially (<chef>, <choklad>, etc) -- finally, as in <och>, it's pronounced [k] so they couldn't use that. They could have used <-rs> (as in <mars>) I suppose.

<sch> does occur in other words for this sound (<schal>, <schema>, ...), though these are all borrowed from Geklrman AFAICT, and like you say I can't think of any other words where it's final.

Just guessing. Trond may be able to provide a more authorative explanation. How do they spell it in Norwegian? (It's not in my little Norwegian dictionary.)

John.

.

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