I know the Swiss city of Basel via two connections: Roger Federer and FC Basel. But during a Champions League match, I remember the commentator pronouncing the team name different to how it was spelt. Rather than saying “baa-zul”, he said “baal”. Was it a classic case of British overpronounciation of European names? Apparently not, according to this BBC guide:
The German spelling is Basel, pronounced BAA-zuhl (-aa as in “father”, -uh as “a” in “ago”, stressed syllable in upper case).
Given that it is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, one might expect the English pronunciation to be based on the German but, in fact, the English form is Basle and for the pronunciation we give the established anglicisation baal (-aa as in “father”).
This pronunciation is possibly based on the French spelling Bâle, which is also pronounced baal.
So which pronunciation should we use? Our usual recommendation for place names is to recommend the established anglicisation, if one exists.
And to think this was triggered by the same thing that pricked my ears up: a commentator’s pronunciation during a Champions League game between Manchester United and FC Basel.