Let’s call the whole thing off.
I gotta bet with my boss. Is the word “Jain,” as in a follower of Jainism, the Indian religion, pronounced with a long a or a long i?
Long i, sez I.
No idea, though I heard that Sikh was supposed to be pronounced “sick”, but it seems unappetizing to anglophones so we call it “seek”.
From Merriam-Webster Online:
Lots o’ stuf in them dictionaries.
Of course, even with a dictionary, one should proof before posting, otherwise stuff comes out wrong.
Yup. Problem is, OED says “jayn,” while several others say “jine.” The Boss claims that OED is the last word. BS, I reply, as I’ve been in classes with native Hindi speakers who say “jine.” She retorts that we’re talking about an English transliteration of a word from Sanskrit. I rejoin that we’re talking about a Sanskrit word that’s been picked up, possibly mauled by the Imperialist Anglos, and improperly pronounced for the last 195 years.
We’re librarians (well, SHE is). We’ve heard about dictionaries before. In this case, the dictionaries are unclear.
Well, at this point, I’d guess you’re not talking about how it should be pronounced in India, at all, but about which pronunciation in English is most widespread–and that may require a decision to allow/disallow Brit, Yank, (Oz, South African, Canadian, Kiwi, etc.).
The Merriam-Webster, the American Heritage, and an ancient Webster Universal that I have all say jine while the OED, as you noted, says jane. I don’t have access to a Random House dictionary, but it appears that the division is national.
There is another possibility, of course, (although your boss may consider it heresy): The OED may need to be updated. (Not to change jane to jine, but to include the U.S. pronunciation.) My copy of the OED is the 1919 edition and has only a single pronunciation. Does the revised edition not have an alternative pronunciation? If so, I would submit that you ought to notify them that there is ample evidence that they ought to put in a second pronunciation. (If you are using the 1919 edition, then your boss should be required to defer judgment until you can find the revised edition.)
In Oz, even it they tried to say “jayn” it would come out “jine.”
My copy of The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993) has two pronunciations: first jine and then jane. The OED rarely concerns itself with North American pronunciations, and when it does, it so indicates it. The guide says “The pronunciations shown are those which can safely be regarded as allowable in British English at the present time…”
Okay, the language is named after them, so they have some justification for their audacious attitude that they know how everything should be pronounced. But they can take it to extremes. They insist on renaming Wilhelm to William, for example. Once I was talking about a country in northern Africa, and I was corrected - “you mean ‘maracko’” - “People from Morocco say ‘Morocco’” I reply, with o’s round as can be.
The right answer in my mind is - Whatever the Jain call themselves.
Well, I’ve always said “jayn.” I just consulted my parents (we’re from India), and they say “jayn.” My mother also added that all of our Jain friends pronounce it “jayn.” Hope this clears it up for you.
The Sanskrit word jaina from which the Hindi/English term Jain comes is pronounced with a long “i” (that is, what English calls a long “i”) as in “mine”. So that’s the etymologically correct pronunciation. However, if lots of people have been influenced by the English spelling to pronounce it as if it rhymed with “pain” and “rain”, I see no point in trying to talk them out of it. Both seem to be accepted pronunciations at this point (even Indians, even Jain Indians, don’t have a consensus on this one).
Sikh, by the way, is from Sanskrit 'si.sya, which has a short “i”, but the Sanskrit short “i” is more “ee-y” than our English short “i” as in “sick” or “bit”. So no, “sick” is not as good an approximation as “seek”, but ideally you should shoot for a sound sort of in between them. A short “seek”, say. (But there are no short Sikhs, it seems. Oh, shut up, Kimstu.)
Yeah, and the OED probably gives the pronunciation of
Nicaragua as "Nick-uh-rag-yew-uh, but that doesn’t mean it’s
right. Pronouncers of Standard British (such as BBC announcers and the like) are notorious for completely Anglicising foreign names.
Kind of like the way we say “FYOOSHIA” for fuchsia.
It really should be FOOKSIA, but presumably that reminds people of the word f***.
The diphthong ai in Sanskrit, Hindi, and other Indian languages has a variety of pronunciations. That’s part of the reason you guys are having such a hard time deciding how to pronounce it.
The pronunciation in India really depends on what area you come from. Many Indians pronounce it like the English a as in apple. So Jain would be pronounced “Jan” as in “Jan Brady.” I know that sounds odd, but that pronunciation of “ai” actually is widespread in India.
Another widespread pronunciation for ai is a diphthong we don’t have in English. The first part of it is a central or low schwa-like vowel, like the u in but. Followed by the -y offglide.
The “English long i” sound is really a diphthong of the long /a:/ as in father, followed by the -y offglide. So the Indian “ai” is like that except the first part is much shorter, like a schwa. The Indian short “a” is pronounced like English short “u”, so that Hindi sab is pronounced “sub.” So just use that sound followed by the -y glide.