The Great Italian Debate

My husband has long been the source of considerable teasing in our family because of his pronunciation of the word "Italian." See, in the Panhandle of Oklahoma, everyone pronounces it with a long I sound at the beginning, like eye-talian. But for most of the country, we pronounce it with a short eh sound.

This weekend we had a healthy debate whether Mitch's pronunciation is correct, acceptable, colloquial or just downright offensive. To investigate, I consulted both Merriam-Webster, the go-to dictionary for most, and Dictionary.com, the free online version. Results below!

Merriam-Webster
Main Entry: ¹Ital·ian

Pronunciation: \ə-ˈtal-yən, i- also ˌī-\

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 a : a native or inhabitant of Italy b : a person of Italian descent
2 : the Romance language of the Italians

Dictionary.com

 /ɪˈtælyən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [i-tal-yuhn]

–adjective

1.	of or pertaining to Italy, its people, or their language.

–noun

2.	a native or inhabitant of Italy, or a person of Italian descent.

3.	a Romance language, the language of Italy, official also in Switzerland. Abbreviation: It, It., Ital.

Pronunciation note:
The pronunciation of Italian with an initial /aɪ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ahy] Show IPA sound (pronounced like the word eye) and often with level stress on the first and second syllables: /ˈaɪˈtælyən/[ahy-tal-yuhn] is heard primarily from uneducated speakers. This pronunciation is sometimes facetious or disparaging in purpose and is usually considered offensive.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

So the debate rages on, I suppose. This would be a lot easier if those dictionary folks could get on the same page!

(Same page, haha, I crack myself up.)