German questions

[Lērisama]

Maybe English does not like initial /ts/?

It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here.

I've always understood the situation as ⟨z⟩ having two main pronunciations: /z/ mostly, and /ts/ in some loanwords. As initial /ts/ is banned, the only option left is /z/, which is then used. /s/ and /z/ are also close enough that someone with access to the spelling, but not knowing German would assume they misheard the initial sound as a /z/ and correct¹ it to /s/.

¹ I don't thing this fits the definition of hypercorrection, but it is am overcorrection of some kind

[anteallach]

Maybe English does not like initial /ts/?

It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here.

On the other hand tsar is sometimes pronounced with /z/. This may have something to do with the alternative spelling with cz but it is still curious.

[Travis B.]

Maybe English does not like initial /ts/?

It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here.

On the other hand tsar is sometimes pronounced with /z/. This may have something to do with the alternative spelling with cz but it is still curious.

Yes; note that I suspect it has something to do with a bad spelling pronunciation of czar.

[Creyeditor]

Maybe English does not like initial /ts/?

It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here.

Maybe it's kind of like a hyperforeignism? So, you want to map initial <z> to something that sounds foreign - and initial /ts/ is dispreferred - so you map it to /z/ instead. Kind of like habanero being pronounced with /nj/ to make it sound 'foreign enough'. Initial /s/ is very frequent in native English, right? So you want to avoid that in 'exotic' words.
And you couldn't do that with <tsunami> because - apart from tsar - you never map <ts> to /z/.

[Travis B.]

Maybe English does not like initial /ts/?

It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here.

Maybe it's kind of like a hyperforeignism? So, you want to map initial <z> to something that sounds foreign - and initial /ts/ is dispreferred - so you map it to /z/ instead. Kind of like habanero being pronounced with /nj/ to make it sound 'foreign enough'. Initial /s/ is very frequent in native English, right? So you want to avoid that in 'exotic' words.
And you couldn't do that with <tsunami> because - apart from tsar - you never map <ts> to /z/.

I don't think /z/ for German initial ⟨z⟩ is a hyperforeignism; if anything, on second thought, it's probably interference from English orthography (kind of like how German ⟨a⟩ can be any of /ɑ æ eɪ/ depending on whether it is an open syllable or not and how nativized it is).

[Creyeditor]

It doesn't -- but why not loan it as /s/ then? For instance, Japanese tsunami is commonly pronounced with initial /s/ here.

Maybe it's kind of like a hyperforeignism? So, you want to map initial <z> to something that sounds foreign - and initial /ts/ is dispreferred - so you map it to /z/ instead. Kind of like habanero being pronounced with /nj/ to make it sound 'foreign enough'. Initial /s/ is very frequent in native English, right? So you want to avoid that in 'exotic' words.
And you couldn't do that with <tsunami> because - apart from tsar - you never map <ts> to /z/.

I don't think /z/ for German initial ⟨z⟩ is a hyperforeignism; if anything, on second thought, it's probably interference from English orthography (kind of like how German ⟨a⟩ can be any of /ɑ æ eɪ/ depending on whether it is an open syllable or not and how nativized it is).

That's definitely another factor obviously.