Pronunciation of "Ngaio"

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:52 PM -0300 5/9/09, David A. Daniel wrote:
>There is a(n) (in)famous poker player named Scotty Nguyen. He pronounces his
>name Scotty Win - could be more marketing than etymocultural. (Hmmm. Appears
>I may have just coined etymocultural. Remember: you saw it here first.)
>DAD
>

Yes, I remember Scotty Nguyen (with the
pronunciation you note) from WSOPs past.  There's
also a Dallas Cowboys linebacker and now coach
named Dat Nguyen from Vietnam (although he grew
up in Texas).  According to the wiki site for him
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dat_Nguyen the
name is pronounced Vietnamese style with initial
velar nasal (note the IPA transcription at the
beginning), but I seem to recall that was not the
standard practice by announcers when he was
playing.  Another web site suggests "[win]",
which I suspect is intended to represent [wIn] as
in Scotty.  Kudos to wikipedia for the old
college try, though.

LH

>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
>Jim Parish
>Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 6:56 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "Ngaio"
>
>
>
>James Harbeck wrote, of "Nguyen":
>>  Lucky you! Here in multicultural Toronto, I've heard the same name
>>  said [juN] and [nudZEn] and [nugEn]. [NaI at n] isn't quite a match to
>>  the Vietnamese, either, but it's much closer (ISTR it's more like
>>  [Nujn] - according to what I was told by one person bearing the name).
>>  Nonetheless, I agree that the trend is towards being able (or should I
>>  say willing) to pronounce the velar nasal word initially.
>
>I remember, back in the '60s, hearing the name pronounced [nwIn].
>Haven't heard it (in any pronunciation) much since the end of the
>Vietnam War, but then this area hasn't attracted too many Indo-Chinese
>immigrants.
>
>Jim Parish
>
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