Pronouncing "Sjonna"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 11:23 AM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
>
> My niece "Sjonna" asks me why her mother insists that "Sjonna" must be
> pronounced "shawn" (or, as they render it, "shaan") rather than "shown-nuh"
> or "shawn-nuh". This seems to be a common conception in the US. I have
> wondered myself about this, assuming it was rooted in some kind of
> 20th-century linguistic folk legend.
>
> My knowledge of the Scandinavian languages is sparse, but I'm fairly
> certain that the normal pronunciation  of "Sjonna" would be "shown-nuh" or
> "shawn-nuh" (where "shawn" rhymes with "lawn").
>
> It occurs to me (in response to my nice's query) that some Scandinavians
> may shorten "Sjonna" to "Sjon" as a nickname (the way "Thomas" gets
> shortened to "Tom" in English), so maybe the way she pronounces her name
> just comes from the Scandinavian nick-name pronunciation?

I have no insights into "Sjonna", but it reminds me of debates about
the pronunciation of "sauna":

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003043.html


--Ben Zimmer

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