Yes, Mr T makes a very good point. And anyway, aren't all words borrowed from the very first languages? God, languages can be so confusing! Some say we should say it as the way it was originally meant to be said, in this case, "foosh", but, as Mr T says, the word has been borrowed and then changed, as to fit our language... I wonder why I even want to go so in depth with pronunciation... Maybe if one wanted to create an authentic Madagascar zoo experience, then they would use "foosh" because that is the way Malagasy people pronounce it and you want your exhibit to be as realistic as possible. But what the heck, when I'm talking to somebody about it, I'll just use foo-sah! (Or maybe I'll use Ituri's Cryptoprocta ferox )
Foosah as it is the local Malagasy name for the species. So, people better use it than come up with some handicapped transliteration.
I used to say "fah-sah" all the time as we have a word in Danish, "fosse", that sounds quite like that. Then I watched the animation movie Madagascar where they said "foo-sa", and I found out soon that was the correct pronounciation. However, "fah-sah" is still sticking a bit, and I say that by accident at times.
For years before the Madagascar film it has been pronounced 'fossa', as in 'dosser', or 'Prosser' in the UK but there have been national differences.
I thought that the spelling of it's name has now been changed to Fosa to avoid confusion with Fossa fossana - the Fanaloka????
I just had 'a google' of Fossa and Fosa and both seem in use. If they where going to change it to something else they could have at least put it to Foosa to save the confusion of mispronunciation. It appears some folk here choose to pronounce it the way it is pronounced in Madagascar and others (like me) choose to pronounce it how they read it according to pronunciation rules of the English language. On the flip of this I will admit I pronounce Przewalski as ‘Sheh-val-ski’. The English language is notorious for contradicting itself on ‘rules’ for spelling and pronunciations of words, so in many cases maybe there are numerous acceptable pronunciations.
At Micke Grove Zoo, we say "Fossa" and "Foosa" interchangebly depending on the person. PS: Can anyone help me out on the pronouciation of Duiker? That is high on my list when it comes to difficult animal pronounciations.
Most common pronunciation is die-ker (rhymes with biker), although the correct Afrikaans pronunciation is closer to day-ker. The Dutch/Afrikaans "ui" diphthong is not really pronounceable using English.
when i was in madagascar, it was always 'fo-sah'. Maybe its a regional thing though, because i was in the north and i know malagasy is really different in different places?
