# Pizza



## Outsider

I would like to know which word, or words, are used for "pizza" in as many languages as possible. If your language is written with the Latin alphabet, please say whether the word is spelled as in Italian, or whether the spelling has been altered. Try to explain whether the word is pronounced [pitsa] like in Italian, or not. 
Thanks.


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## robbie_SWE

Swedish: *pizza *(same pronunciation)

Romanian: *pizza *(same pronunciation)

I think that most languages will have it the same way. 

 robbie


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## DearPrudence

French : *pizza *[pidza]

Spanish : *pizza* [piza] (with a kind of English "th")


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## Frank06

Hi,

In _Dutch _it's written as 'pizza', but often pronounced as 'pidza' (due to assimilation). /pitza/ and /pitsa/ can also be heard.
_Esperanto_: 'pico' /pitso/ (it's a noun, hence -o! 
_Finnish _'pizza' or 'pitsa'
_Korean _피자 (+/- /p'id3a/, with /d3a/ more or less as in E. 'jar')
_Icelandic _'pizza' (also flatbaka, also pítsa)
_Chinese _比薩 (trad.), 比萨 (simpl.), bi3sa4 (PY) (sometimes followed by  餅  饼, bing3), sometimes just... 'pizza' .
_Persian_ پیتزا , /pitza/.('kesh loghmeh', a neologism which is at least 5 years old, meaning '_stretchy snack_' is hardly used).
_Slovenian_ píca /pitsa/.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Flaminius

Japanese: ピザ or /pidza/


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## Honour

TR: Pizza, pronunced with double *z*


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## Outsider

Turk said:
			
		

> TR: Pizza, pronunced with double *z*


Sorry, but what do you mean by "pronounced with double z"?


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## Cecilio

Hello. I would say that the pronunciation of "pizza" in Spanish is not [piza] (the "z" like "th" in English "theatre"). I think that in general, Spanish speakers pronounce more or less like [pitsa].


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## Honour

Outsider said:
			
		

> Sorry, but what do you mean by "pronounced with double z"?


 
We stress on each <*z> *when reading it. We dont read it as _pitza_, _pitsa_, _pisa_, _pidsa_ etc.


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## linguist786

Cecilio said:
			
		

> Hello. I would say that the pronunciation of "pizza" in Spanish is not [piza] (the "z" like "th" in English "theatre"). I think that in general, Spanish speakers pronounce more or less like [pitsa].


I think he means it's pronounced like: piz-zaa. So the stress is on the "double z". If you can read Arabic/Urdu: پِزّا


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## Outsider

Turk said:
			
		

> We stress on each <*z> *when reading it. We dont read it as _pitza_, _pitsa_, _pisa_, _pidsa_ etc.


Do you mean that you pronounce it [piz:a], with a long _z_?


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## jester.

The German word is Pizza and it is pronounced as in Italian.


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## linguist786

Outsider said:
			
		

> Do you mean that you pronounce it [piz:a], with a long _z_?


Yep!


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## Outsider

Thank you for the clarifications, Linguist786 and Turk.

Keep those replies coming!


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## Honour

Outsider said:
			
		

> Do you mean that you pronounce it [piz:a], with a long _z_?


 
I have just read the gemination article on wiki however i am not quite sure whether this is the case or not. I could say that two separate <Z>s seem more appropriate as a definition. It is like Piz'za. First read *piz* and then read the remaining *za*


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## Outsider

That seems like the pronunciation you have for "nn" in English compound words such as "unnamed", which is indeed a geminate, or long /n/.


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## linguist786

Outsider said:
			
		

> That seems like the pronunciation you have for "nn" in English compound words such as "unnamed", which is indeed a geminate, or long /n/.


Yes, it's just like "unnamed" but with a double "z" instead of a double "n"


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## Honour

Outsider said:
			
		

> That seems like the pronunciation you have for "nn" in English compound words such as "unnamed", which is indeed a geminate, or long /n/.


 
Ok, if you say so . I wasn't sure because i had thought that the gemination means lengthening of a sound just in the way the italians do when speaking; parl*A*re,and*A*re etc. Anyway,  unnamed is a perfect example for what i tried to tell


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## Outsider

Turk said:
			
		

> I wasn't sure because i had thought that the gemination means lengthening of a sound just in the way the italians do when speaking; parl*A*re,and*A*re etc.


That is called "stress".


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## cherine

In Arabic we write it بيتزا and people (at least in Egypt) pronounce it in different ways : pitza, pitsa, petza, petsa.

Edit : Ooops, I'm sorry. I forgot something very important: People usually don't pronounce the "p" (specially those who didn't get any education in foreign language, because the Arabic language has only the sound "b", not "p"). So, many people pronounce this word as bitza, bitsa, betza, betsa.


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## karuna

In Latvian it is written _pica – _prounounced the same as the Italian word.


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## pickypuck

Another variant of the word in Spanish is the pronunciation pisa.

¡Olé!


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## Chazzwozzer

Here's pronunciation of pizza in Turkish. (thanks to seslisozluk.  )

So, now we are all sure that it's called as _gemination_ in linguistics, eh?


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## Whodunit

j3st3r said:
			
		

> The German word is Pizza and it is pronounced as in Italian.


 
Not always. As far as I know the Italian "zz" is pronounced "longer" than we would do. In German it sounds like [pıtsa]. The interesting thing is that the plural is either "Pizzen" or "Pizzas," but never "Pizze," as in Italian.


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## amikama

Hebrew: *פיצה* (_pitsa_, as in Italian).


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## Thomas1

In Polish:
pizza [pitstsa] I also heard my grandmum pronouncing it [pizza]


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## übermönch

Heh, a nice word to ask. It's пица in Bolgarian, пiца in Ukrainian and пицца in Russian - in all cases it is spelled as in any other language - The I is somewhat longer and it is not a semivocal, as it is in German/English (and italian?)

If read in english it'd be like this:
RUeet-tsa
BG,UAee-tsa

In macedonian it is different; пизза, read as pee-zah.


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## Maja

In Serbian it is "pica" (but same write pizza), in Cyrillic "пица"; pronounced  {pee-tsa}.


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## andersxman

I read that Ahmadinejad in Iran has invoked a purification of Farsi, ie. a weeding out of foreign terms - amongst those to be eliminated you have "Pizza". The word that has substituted pizza is, if I remember correctly, something like "stretchy bread" - in Farsi, obviously.


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## Frank06

Hi,


			
				andersxman said:
			
		

> I read that Ahmadinejad in Iran has invoked a purification of Farsi, ie. a weeding out of foreign terms - amongst those to be eliminated you have "Pizza". The word that has substituted pizza is, if I remember correctly, something like "stretchy bread" - in Farsi, obviously.



You read well, but you read a badly informed article .

See: 
WordReference Forums  	> Additional Forums      	> Cultural Discussions
#post1311562.
[Sorry, still not allowed to include hyperlinks in my messages].

Groetjes,

Frank


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## ekhlewagastiR

in Russian "пицца" (the same pronunciation)
I think it´s also pronounced "pitsa" in Russian


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## Outsider

andersxman said:
			
		

> I read that Ahmadinejad in Iran has invoked a purification of Farsi, ie. a weeding out of foreign terms - amongst those to be eliminated you have "Pizza". The word that has substituted pizza is, if I remember correctly, something like "stretchy bread" - in Farsi, obviously.


Discussed and dissected here.


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## Whodunit

übermönch said:
			
		

> Heh, a nice word to ask. It's пица in Bolgarian, пiца in Ukrainian and пицца in Russian - in all cases it is spelled as in any other language - The I is somewhat longer and it is not a semivocal, as it is in German/English (and italian?)


 
I think in Italian it almost pronounced like "peet-tsa."


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## alby

In Croatian is *Pizza *- same as italian (pitsa)

Nataša


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## betulina

In Catalan it's pronounced [pidza].


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## AnaGreece

Although in spanish you write pizza too,I would say that in lots of parts of Spain we say pisa more than pitsa or even piza (the z in this case is  the english th but not like in "the" but like in "anthropic") because the sound *ts *doesn't exist in spanish and isn't very easy to say.


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## elroy

Whodunit said:


> Not always. As far as I know the Italian "zz" is pronounced "longer" than we would do. In German it sounds like [pıtsa]. The interesting thing is that the plural is either "Pizzen" or "Pizzas," but never "Pizze," as in Italian.


Also, isn't the "i" short in German?  (In Italian it's long, as in English).


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## ceann-feachd

In Gaelic, it's *Piotsa* and it's pronounced _PIT-sa_with a short I sound, not an EE sound.


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## 1234plet

In Danish it is the same as Italian; Pizza


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## Bienvenidos

In Farsi/Persian, it's "pizza". But, they usually add emphasis to the ZA, saying pitZUH instead of PITzuh.

Saludos


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## MarX

Outsider said:


> I would like to know which word, or words, are used for "pizza" in as many languages as possible. If your language is written with the Latin alphabet, please say whether the word is spelled as in Italian, or whether the spelling has been altered. Try to explain whether the word is pronounced [pitsa] like in Italian, or not.
> Thanks.


In Indonesian, which uses Latin alphabet, the word is written as *pizza*, and pronounced as _pitsa_, just like in Italian.


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## avok

So Turkish seems to be the only language that does not have "t" or "d" when pronouncing the word "pizza"? ( vs pidza, pitza...)


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## blue_jewel

In Tagalog: Pizza (Pitsa)


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## Outsider

avok said:


> So Turkish seems to be the only language that does not have "t" or "d" when pronouncing the word "pizza"? ( vs pidza, pitza...)


Some people say "piza" in Portugal, though the Italian pronunciation remains very widespread.


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## kusurija

In Czech:
pizza (pronounced as in Italian; _i_ is short)

In Lithuanian:
pica (pronounced as in Italian; _i_ is short)
Saludos, ahoj!


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## avok

Well actually Piza (not Pitsa or pidza) means something naughty in Bosnian


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## mgwls

Pizza is spelled _pizza_ in Argentina, but the pronunciation is varied. Some say _pitsa_, others say _pisa_ and there are some that pronounce _picsa_.


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## sokol

jester. said:


> The German word is Pizza and it is pronounced as in Italian.


 In Germany usually it is pronounced as [pʰɪtsa] which is _not quite_ the Italian [pittsa], but with regional varieties and in Southern Germany (at least in Lower Bavaria, on the Austrian border) with [pʰittsa] closer to the original if still with aspirated /p/.
 In Austria in standard speech and dialects the pronunciation of 'pizza' is like in Bavarian but without aspirated /p/ (usually, except for a very few speakers who try to produce the aspirated German plosives like the Germans do) - so the Austrian 'pizza' really almost sounds the same as the Italian one.



Chazzwozzer said:


> Here's pronunciation of pizza in Turkish. (thanks to seslisozluk.  )
> 
> So, now we are all sure that it's called as _gemination_ in linguistics, eh?


 There's no gemination in the Turkish word as provided by this audio file; what I hear is [pʰisa].



elroy said:


> Also, isn't the "i" short in German?  (In Italian it's long, as in English).


Yes, the German 'i' certainly is short, and also half-open as far as standard language is concerned.

In Austria we do not have the Italian-style long consonants (geminata) but a combined vocal-consonant-quantity as far as the dialects are concerned (most dialects, anyway); in modern colloquial speech and standard language speech this is not so straightforward as there exist intermediate forms, but basically a short vowel is followed by a long consonant, and a long vowel by a short consonant.
So the Austrian [pittsa] (with closed 'i' too!) is _rather _close, but _not quite_ identical to the Italian one.


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## Kangy

I want to add something to the Spanish pronunciation.
It varies from region to region, and there's even more than one pronunciation in the same region. The different pronounciations are:

[pisa] (very common, I pronounce it this way)
[piθa] (only in Spain)
[pitsa] (also very common, it might sound snobby to some people)
[piksa] (believe it or not  it's incorrect, but widely used)


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## sokol

My Spanish teacher (born and raised in Castilia) told us that  [pitsa] would be the "correct" Spanish form, for what it's worth - because in the huge Spanish speaking area of course there are bound to be many varieties, as you've just written, Kangy.


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## avok

sokol said:


> There's no gemination in the Turkish word as provided by this audio file; what I hear is [pʰisa].


 
No sokol, it is "pizza" with double "z" otherwise it would be "piza" not "pizza".


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## sokol

avok said:


> No sokol, it is "pizza" with double "z" otherwise it would be "piza" not "pizza".



This is what you write, but I do not hear gemination in the sound example given - not at all.
It is _very _clear to the ear that the syllable break in the Turkish word 'pizza' (as provided by Chazzwozzer in post #23) occurs after the 'i' and before the 'zz', so syllable break like that /pi.sa/ (market with a point).

With geminata the syllable break is in the geminated consonant, like that: /pis.sa/: this is how Italian geminates are pronounced. (In Italian it would be an affricate in this case, but this about geminates here.)

It may well be that the 's' here in /pi.sa/ sounds - to the Turkish ear - 'harder' or 'longer' than a 'normal' s (whatever that may be), but this only would be a perceptional fact.

A fact concerning the phonetics of this word anyway is that the Turkish /s/ in the Turkish pronunciation of 'pizza' certainly is _not _a geminate.


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## avok

Then you better listen to me.  Pizzzzzzzzza not "Piza" I did not listen to the sound example. Maybe it is a bad example .

There is a gemination in the Turkish word "a*nn*e", right? Then Pizza is the same..If there were no gemination than it would be written as "piza". Turkish is phonetical, you write what you hear. I'll listen to the example above.

Edit: Sokol, You are right. I listened to the example and it is "piza" it is not how we pronounce "Pizza" in Turkish, anyway.


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## Joannes

Kangy said:


> [piksa] (believe it or not  it's incorrect, but widely used)


Flashback! This pronunciation was the cause of a misunderstanding I had with a Mexican friend of mine and drove me crazy. 

/ts/ clusters seem to be a problem for native speakers of Spanish. Reminds me of the /eksetera/ story. (http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=214859&page=6)


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## Outsider

Indeed, that cluster is mostly alien to both Spanish and Portuguese (with the exception of a handful of learned latinisms). This is why in more unsophisticated -- but also more genuine -- registers, people tend to simplify it to "pisa" or "piza", or something similar.


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## sokol

avok said:


> Then you better listen to me.  Pizzzzzzzzza not "Piza" I did not listen to the sound example. Maybe it is a bad example .


 The sound file given above definitely is without gemination, period.

Probably you could give me a link to a file of the pronunciation you are used to so that I could decide wether there really is gemination.



avok said:


> There is a gemination in the Turkish word "a*nn*e", right?


I do not speak Turkish; could you please give a link to an audio file so that I could listen to it?

Apart from that, gemination in writing has *nothing* to do whatsoever with phonetical gemination. Many languages where there do not exist phonetical geminatas do have written gemination. The two things are different - the phonetical one you can hear (you don't have to know the language for that one), and the written one is only a convention of ortography which in some cases indeed does represent gemination, in other it doesn't.


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## franz rod

In Italian a written gemination is always read.  So it isn't right to read pizza without the gemination of z.


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## Lukillas6

In Argentina, we write PIZZA, and it is sometimes pronounced "pitza" like in Italy, but most times when we are talking we kindof argentinize the word and pronounce it "piss-a".


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## avok

sokol said:


> The sound file given above definitely is without gemination, period.
> 
> Probably you could give me a link to a file of the pronunciation you are used to so that I could decide wether there really is gemination.
> 
> 
> I do not speak Turkish; could you please give a link to an audio file so that I could listen to it?
> 
> Apart from that, gemination in writing has *nothing* to do whatsoever with phonetical gemination. Many languages where there do not exist phonetical geminatas do have written gemination. The two things are different - the phonetical one you can hear (you don't have to know the language for that one), and the written one is only a convention of ortography which in some cases indeed does represent gemination, in other it doesn't.


 

Did not you read my Edit? 



> Edit: Sokol, You are right. I listened to the example and it is "piza" it is not how we pronounce "Pizza" in Turkish, anyway.


 
Pizza in Turkish is "Piz-za" neither Piza nor Pitsa nor Pidza nor Pisa nor Pitha nor Piksa...

"Piz": "peas"

"za": "zuh"

Pea*s* + *z*uh: Two (2) z's are pronounced...as in the*se **z*ebras: thee- *zz- *ibras. I dont understand why you just dont trust me.

The boy in Chazwozzers link does not say pizza with gemination. It is not Turkish. Ok? I dont know why Chazwozzer put it. I'll try to put my own voice  later.

You say: 





> gemination in writing has *nothing* to do whatsoever with phonetical gemination


I did not mean that either. I said in Turkish (I dont know about other languages) gemination has everything to do with writing. There is gemination in Pi"zz"a just because it is written like this in ...Italian and the word was borrowed from Italian as it is.. and the pronounciation became Turkified two "zz" is "gemination". The Turks pronounce for example "Manhattan" with a....gemination Manha*t*-*t*on unconsciously since they see two "t"s together. Mado"*nn*"a in Turkish is pronounced as "Mado*n*-*n*uh" not as Mado*n*a as in English. Pizza is no exception to the rule.


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## sokol

avok said:


> Pea*s* + *z*uh: Two (2) z's are pronounced...as in the*se **z*ebras: thee- *zz- *ibras. I dont understand why you just dont trust me.



I did not trust you because of the audio file posted earlier by another forero where 'pizza' clearly was NOT pronounced with a geminated sibilant = a long sibilant where the syllable break occurs within rather than before or after the consonant. And I only asked you about a source, a file, anything ...

Well, I've dug in myself now on Turkish phonetics and what I have found is that Turkish indeed *does *have geminates, and that double consonants in Turkish scripts really are pronounced long, that is as geminates.

So sorry for the mistrust, and I do confirm herewith that to my best knowledge 'pizza' should be pronounced with a long /z/ (= not an affricate as in Italian but a sibilant), as you have claimed all the way. 

The audio file from above may not be authentic, or from some dialect where there's no gemination - that I don't know.


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## avok

Hahaha Thank you


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## Sionees

Welsh should be pitsa ['pItsa] as we don't have a z in our alphabet. However you sometimes see pizza (sometimes in italic, sometimes not. Pun not intended btw) However, the vowels still retain their Welsh/Italian sounds; the <a> is NOT schwa.


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## rsanabria

Hi, I would like to help with the thread, take a look at the next URL http://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/pizza

Bye,

Ricardo


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## Lukillas6

In Argentina, we write it "pizza" but the difference lies in its pronunciation.
Cultured people pronounce it /pitsa/.
Some other pronounce it /pisa/.
The "z" is pronounced /s/ in Argentina, not /th/ as it is in Spain. 
I hope it helped you.


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## Lukillas6

I meant: others*


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## apmoy70

In Greek:
Πίτσα, _f._, P*i*tsa
in plural, πίτσες, p*i*tses


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## sakvaka

In Finnish there are two possible ways to write the word:

pizza or pitsa (both pronounced ['pit.sa])

(pizzan, pizzaa, pizzaan, pizzojen, pizzoja, pizzoihin; pitsan, pitsaa, pitsaan, pitsojen, pitsoja, pitsoihin)

The problem is that the YSA (General Finnish thesaurus) recommends the former way, while Kielitoimisto (Language office) the latter. I prefer "pizza".

It can be made an endless topic of discussion: should I write "taxi" instead of "taksi" etc.


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## Hakro

sakvaka said:


> It can be made an endless topic of discussion: should I write "taxi" instead of "taksi" etc.


Let's not start it.


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## Encolpius

kusurija said:


> In Czech: pizza (pronounced as in Italian; _i_ is short)



Well, first of all I must disagree with many members who claimed they pronounced it the same as Italians. As the native mentioned here, -zz- is long, and there are many languages which do not know long consonants, just like Czech. I've enclosed a file how a native pronounces it. 

In *Hungarian*, although we use long consonants (like Finns, Swedes, Italians), we do not pronounce it the same way, but [pidzdza], i.e. with a long -dz-. I am not sure but I think the same pronunciation is used in some regions in Italy, too.


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## Encolpius

robbie_SWE said:


> Swedish: *pizza *(same pronunciation)



Of course it is not the same pronunciation either. I've enclosed how a native pronounces pizza in Swedish with that typical beautiful tone.


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