I'm currently in a graduate-level literature course taught by a professor who pronounces the word "fascist" "fah-schist." I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce the word "fasicst" that way. Anyone have any idea why he might do that?
It's still kind of unclear to me how he's pronouncing that.
First of all, I assume he's emphasizing the first syllable? Second, is he using a hard C or not? FAH-skist or FAH-shist?
There are several pronunciation points that are a little ambiguous due to the limitations of text. Let's address them one-by-one:
Accent on the first syllable - I don't believe I've ever heard anyone pronounce "fascist" without doing that.
The vowel sound following the initial "f" - I use the same vowel here that I use in the word "fat". If your professor is using the vowel in the first syllable of "father" instead, it may be due to influence from the Latin root word "fasces"; so-called classical pronunciation of Latin insists on that broader "ah" sound. You haven't said, but if he's not originally from the US, he may also be influenced by the way the corresponding word is pronounced in another language (the Romance languages tend to use a vowel closer to the Latin original than does English).
The consonant or cluster of consonants in the middle of the world - My own inclination here is the "sh" sound, which is what the "classical" Latin rules suggest, but some scholars of Latin prefer a hard "c", even when it's followed by an "e" or "i", thus "faskist". Others would combine the "sc" cluster before those vowels as a single "s" sound, resulting in "fassist", though I don't think I've heard that done to this particular word (the word that gets the treatment more often than I expect it is "schism", pronounced "sizzum" by some).
He pronounces "fascist" without a hard C ("fah-shist") and with an accent on the first syllable. As far as I know, he is originally from the United States.
I had guessed that the influence of Latin or another language might have something to do with his pronunciation, but I wasn't sure.
May just be a dialectal difference too. Being from MN/WI I hear /ae/ as in "fat" and /a/ as in "father" used interchangeably. Yesterday I heard "Asperger's" pronounced with /a/ for the first time (I use /ae/). I pronounce "aunt" with /a/, but hear many people use /ae/. I'm always made aware of this when I go to "Auntie Anne's" for a pretzel.