Asking as a non native speaker, what is it about different pronunciations of j as in San Jose and hallelujah and joy?
In: Culture
Modern day English is a blend of words from many different languages and roots.
San Jose is common in english but comes from Spanish.
Hallelujah traces its origins back to hebrew.
The current pronunciation of joy traces back to old French.
Another example is fiancé. Very common in english usage but is actually a French word.
I’m not a linguist, but I think it’s probably due to the fact that they are all different languages. Jose is Spanish, and since the J’s in Spanish are pronounced differently than in English, that’s where the difference comes from. Same thing for Hallelujah, which is originally a Hebrew word. The different pronunciations of the J probably comes from how it is pronounced in it’s original language rather than some secret meaning.
Edit: If I’m wrong someone please correct me, I’d love to know the proper reasoning if this isnt it!
San Jose is from Spanish, where the J makes an H sound or Y sound sometimes.
Hallelujah comes from Hebrew, IIRC.
Joy is the only completely English word not appropriated from another language.
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