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What do you mean "James" doesn't start with "j" sound? James, Justin, Jam, Jerry, Jello, just, joy, jog, jib.... those all sound like the same J to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fail to see how pash's comment does not explain that: "the English "j" and the French "dj" represent the same sound"
Well, firstly that comment postdates your initial comment that "everybody else in this thread" explains it better and you added the "(such as has pash's sibling comment)" after I'd responded. Secondly, I wanted to dive in a bit more and explain the relationship between the "j" in English vs French and hence the role of the "d" in the French spelling (as that's kind of the whole point).
Phoneticists commonly represent the English "j" sound as the amalgam of two separate sounds:
(a) English "d", a common enough sound; and
(b) the somewhat less common "zh" sound, the second consonant sound in "beige".
In French†, these two sounds are separately written as "d" and "j", and combined (try it—speak quickly) they make the English "j" sound.
This is what everyone has been trying to explain with the unfortunately obscure IPA references.
† – Likewise in other languages, per my examples above. For example, in Russian, the two sounds are separately denoted "д" and "ж" and combine to form the English "j" sound, as in "Джугашвили" (which is Georgian, really: "ჯუღაშვილი").
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From a french speaker point of view, it doesn't makes sense indeed. It's interesting to note that in the french trailer, Django says "Django – Avec un D" (Django, with a D). Also the trailer is much more graphic than the (censored?) U.S. one
It just occurs to me: does French even have the affricate /d͡ʒ/ natively? Do some native French speakers pronounce "Django" with an initial /ʒ/? That actually would be a silent D and would explain why the French would say "Django with a D" rather than "the D is silent"
I think that they had to come up with something to replace "the D is silent" in the trailer, because it wouldn't make sense in french. For example the H is silent in french, wich explain the french accent on english words ("Ello 'Arry").
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, firstly that comment postdates your initial comment that "everybody else in this thread" explains it better and you added the "(such as has pash's sibling comment)" after I'd responded. Secondly, I wanted to dive in a bit more and explain the relationship between the "j" in English vs French and hence the role of the "d" in the French spelling (as that's kind of the whole point).
Ah, I think you've hit on the major point of confusion. Phoneticists commonly represent the English "j" sound as the amalgam of two separate sounds: (a) English "d", a common enough sound; and (b) the somewhat less common "zh" sound, the second consonant sound in "beige". In French†, these two sounds are separately written as "d" and "j", and combined (try it—speak quickly) they make the English "j" sound. This is wh…
Basically: 1. "d" in French is pronounced "d". 2. "j" in French is pronounced "zh". 3. "dj" in French is pronounced as the same affricate you get by combining "d" and "zh". 4. This is a better explanation for the "dj" in Django rather than saying the "j" is an affricate and the "d" is silent.
Django is pronounced with an initial sound that, in English is often written "j". This might lead one to think of the "D" as silent with the "j" being pronounced the way it is in English.
However, that doesn't explain why the "D" is there in the first place.
A more insightful way to think of it is to remember it's a French spelling. Think of the "j" as being pronounced as in French. Now put a "d" sound in front of it. When the "d" sound and "j" sound merge, you get something called an affricate. This particular affricate is the same sound used in English to pronounce just "j".
So a French "dj" is like an English "j". The "d" isn't silent, though, because the French "j" is not the same as the English "j".
In English, the grapheme "d" very commonly represents the sound /d/. Likewise, the grapheme "j" in English very commonly represents the sound /dʒ/. Additionally /dʒ/ is a single distinct sound. There is no /d/ sound in /dʒ/. It's an unfortunate issue that IPA notation might make it appear as though /dʒ/ is the concatenation (borrowing a programming term) of /d/ and /ʒ/ when it is most certainly not. The author's asse…
As a linguistics student, I don't like this argument. Orthographic in English represents the affricate /dʒ/, which is unambiguously a phoneme in English. by itself (generally) represents /dʒ/, so the doesn't contribute any additional phonetic content to the word, so you could, in fact, call it a "silent" . French has a phoneme /ʒ/, written , but, lacking the affricate /dʒ/, has to represent that sound as a sequence o…
We're talking about a web framework named after a Belgian with a Romani nickname whose creator (the web framework's) desires that the web framework be pronounced the same as its namesake. If it were truly Anglicized, you would expect it to be spelled "Jango". So how can we best analyze why it is spelled and yet pronounced /dʒ-/? Either it's because: 1. is silent and is /dʒ/; or 2. is pronounced /d/ and is pronounced…