English words beginning with <j> pronounced [Z]?

Nadia Gabriel nadpaz3 at GMAIL.COM
Mon Jan 21 18:11:21 UTC 2008


Dear all,

A question out of a friend's curious brain - he is French, currently taking
lessons to improve his English:

Do you know of words, common word or proper names, in the English language
that begin with the letter <j> but that are pronounced without the [d]
sound, just the [Z] sound?
Or, to put it another way, words where the initial <j> is pronounced as in
French?

I can't think of any!
An advanced search in the OED Online ("Entries containing Z
in Pronunciations") retrieves only one word: jinricksha, jinrikisha,
*n.*<http://dictionary.oed.com.proxycu.wrlc.org/cgi/entry/50123824?query_type=advsearch&queryword=Z&first=1&max_to_show=10&search_spec=pron%3Aph&order=ab&return_set=entries&sort_type=alpha&result_place=6&control_no=50123824&search_id=xncX-q3erq2-7384&side=M>,
from Japanese.

I'd be grateful for any comments!
 (I must add I didn't read all the article under the entry for the letter J,
which also appeared in the results of my search - Wonderful OED)

Thank you,

 Nadia Gabriel
 Librarian & Translator

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list