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The Pronunciation of Django

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Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#41

Post by fusiongyro »

jtauber wrote: post #32
fusiongyro wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In French 'j' carries /ʒ/ and the digraph 'dj' carries /d͡ʒ/. In English, 'j' carries /d͡ʒ/ and there's no consistent orthographic convention for just /ʒ/ ('si', 'zh', 'j', and 'z' all do the job in different contexts, and probably others as well). There isn't really a /d/ as such in /d͡ʒ/.

Right, but the best explanation for why "Django" is spelled with a is not that the is silent and the represents /d͡ʒ/ but rather that, as you say, the diagraph represents /d͡ʒ/.

Yes, but when somebody says "the d is silent" they're giving directions to spell and pronounce this word in English, not a lesson in French etymology. Your cure is worse than the disease.

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#42

Post by pash »

jtauber wrote: post #39
pash wrote: post #37

The letters "j" in English and "dj" in French represent the same sound†, what Wikipedia calls the "voiced palato-velolar affricate" [0]. That's /dʒ/ in IPA. In English orthography, yes, the "D" in "Django"is silent, at least in the sense that if you remove it from the French spelling you'll get the phonetic English spelling. † — as well as "dzh" ["дж"] in Russian, etc. 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_palato-al…

But if you're trying to explain why Django is spelled the way it is, it's far more insightful to explain /d/ -> and /ʒ/ -> than to posit the comes from nowhere and is just silent.

In my view, it's simpler to explain that the English "j" and the French "dj" represent the same sound ... and leave out all the slashes and brackets and arrows and whatnot.

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#43

Post by jtauber »

jtauber wrote: post #38
_delirium wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yeah, that makes sense to me. Even if you treat 'd' as a kind of modifier in French (it turns the 'j' from a sibilant into an affricative) it's clearly still having an effect on the pronunciation. I was somewhat objecting to whether the the 'd' itself is being pronounced, but that does get pretty hair-splitting, especially since /d/ is a stop. The transcription /dʒ/ sure makes it look like it's pronounced, but if…

I'm trying to think of other modifier examples. Not a perfect analogy but I don't think you'd say that, in English, the in is silent. I wonder about Italian, though. Would it be correct to say the is silent in ? Seems a much tougher call in Italian. I would say /d͡ʒ/ has a much closer relationship to /dʒ/ than /ʎ/ does to /gli/ for example.

Also /d/ + /ʒ/ does become /d͡ʒ/ in English (and potentially all languages that have /d/ and /ʒ/) so even if you had a single symbol for /d͡ʒ/ that was unrelated to that for /d/, the relationship between /dʒ/ and /d͡ʒ/ is still close.

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#44

Post by [deleted] »

jlgreco wrote: post #40
jtauber wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you're trying to explain why Django is spelled the way it is, it's far more insightful to explain /d/ -> and /ʒ/ -> than to posit the comes from nowhere and is just silent.

It is much easier to explain it the way everybody else in this thread (such as has pash's sibling comment) been explaining it, judging from the confusion and befuddlement people seem to be expressing.

[deleted]

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#45

Post by jtauber »

jlgreco wrote: post #40
jtauber wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you're trying to explain why Django is spelled the way it is, it's far more insightful to explain /d/ -> and /ʒ/ -> than to posit the comes from nowhere and is just silent.

It is much easier to explain it the way everybody else in this thread (such as has pash's sibling comment) been explaining it, judging from the confusion and befuddlement people seem to be expressing.

I haven't seen anyone else explain why Django is spelled with a D. All I've seen is people reiterate the reason for the pronunciation given the spelling as "the D is silent" rather than the more insightful fact that, far from being silent, the D was necessary for Django Reinhardt to express the pronunciation of his nickname in his native language.

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#46

Post by defen »

zallarak wrote: post #4

This article may be of interest to you; "Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage" by David Foster Wallace: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html . The relevant argument is that general consensus and what people actually use constitutes how words should be used/pronounced, as opposed to referencing laws.

Interesting choice of article, considering DFW himself was closer to the prescriptivist side (Sprachgefühl Necessitates Our Ongoing Tendance and all that).

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#47

Post by jlgreco »

jtauber wrote: post #45
jlgreco wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is much easier to explain it the way everybody else in this thread (such as has pash's sibling comment) been explaining it, judging from the confusion and befuddlement people seem to be expressing.

I haven't seen anyone else explain why Django is spelled with a D. All I've seen is people reiterate the reason for the pronunciation given the spelling as "the D is silent" rather than the more insightful fact that, far from being silent, the D was necessary for Django Reinhardt to express the pronunciation of his nickname in his native language.

I fail to see how pash's comment does not explain that:

"the English "j" and the French "dj" represent the same sound"

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#48

Post by noarchy »

graue wrote: post #11

Now that's a confusing explanation! Most Python programmers I've met have pronounced it "duh-jango", and I thought this article was going to defend that pronunciation. But it actually says that pronunciation is wrong, and the D is, from an English speaker's perspective, silent. But because J is pronounced differently in French, saying that the D is silent is, although it leads English speakers to pronounce the name c…

Most Python programmers? I guess it depends on the circles in which one travels. I've personally never heard it said as "duh-jango" before. I've never pronounced it that way, personally.

In this talk, you can hear a Django dev pronouncing it (quite often): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-WXiqrzAf8

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#49

Post by jtauber »

jlgreco wrote: post #47
jtauber wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen anyone else explain why Django is spelled with a D. All I've seen is people reiterate the reason for the pronunciation given the spelling as "the D is silent" rather than the more insightful fact that, far from being silent, the D was necessary for Django Reinhardt to express the pronunciation of his nickname in his native language.

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).

Re: The Pronunciation of Django

#50

Post by jtauber »

thomasjoulin wrote: post #30
sirclueless wrote: post #14

This is a pretty ridiculous claim in my mind. You start with the premise that the "Dj" in Django sounds like the "J" in James or Jason or jangle or nearly every other English word with this pronunciation. Now, based on linguistic history and French pronunciation norms, you claim it is more appropriate to conclude that all of these other words have implied "D's" than to conclude that Django has a silent "D". You might…

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"
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