Uruguay has an arguably unparalleled record among men's national football teams per head of population, and tonight is another decisive moment. Obviously, the issue to be decided is whether the BBC and ITV presenters will call them "Yoo-ruguay" or "Oo-ruguay"... what's going on here?
Firstly, the name Uruguay comes from the Guarani language, and is in fact the name of a river (the probable origin of -guay). The country is specifically the Republica Oriental (the "Eastern Republic"), at the eastern end of the river. In Uruguay, Spanish has come to predominate (typically the Rioplatense variety similar to that of Buenos Aires and therefore most speakers in neighbouring Argentina); this is not the case is nearby (but not neighbouring!) Paraguay, where Guarani remains in common use.
However, the issue here is the pronunciation of the first syllable in English, and here we go right back to basics - how are each of the vowels actually pronounced. When you read "A, E, I, O and U", how do you pronounce the last letter?
The letter u in the English language is itself pronounced with what is referred to in phonetics as a "yod", or perhaps more obviously as a "y-glide". In other words, the y is inherent to the pronunciation of the u.
We see this in the pronunciation of lots of words, from "cube" to "universe" to "few". Here, the vowel sound is identical to the pronunciation of the letter u itself.
However, this becomes contested in some cases. The simplified tendency is for "dual" and "news" to retain the y-glide in British English but to lose it in American English, although this also differs between dialects (for example there is no y-glide at all in parts of East Anglia - even in words such as "few"). In other instances, the y-glide has now been lost: even in British English, maintaining it in words such as "suit" or "evolution" would be seen as archaic or characteristic of older speakers. One peculiarity here is the word "dude" which is, specifically, a borrowing into British English from American and thus does not retain the y-glide in either variety (even though typically "dune" does in British).
What on earth has this to do with Uruguay? One of the challenges for any languages is what to do with imported names, and how to "nativise" them. In English, for example, the personal name Rasputin typically is nativised (so the y-glide is added), but Putin varies. With country names, the most obvious example is Cuba - here, there is no y-glide in Spanish (so natives of Cuba pronounce it koo-ba) but there is in all varieties of English (just as there is in "cube").
It is this which brings us to "Uruguay" - this name is essentially borrowed into English via Spanish from Guarani, and is pronounced by natives of Uruguay itself without a y-glide. However, as with Cuba, Uruguay does naturally take the y-glide in English (just as "universe").
Here, consistency is key. There are some presenters who think it preferable to go without the y-glide because natives of the country itself do not - but would they say koo-ba for "Cuba"? Additionally, there is another issue with "Uruguay", namely that Spanish speakers stress the final syllable rather than the first one - are they also doing that? Indeed, do they say Deutschland for "Germany"?
My own sense is that the correct English pronunciation ("correct" meaning both normal and consistent) is Yoo-ruguay. But we will see who wins later on...
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