Pronunciation of "Ngaio"

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Wed May 13 02:43:04 UTC 2009


On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 7:52 PM, Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:
>
> On 9 May 2009, at 16:57, David Bowie wrote:
>>
>> p.s. 'Ng' is pretty consistently [EN], though, in my observation.
>
> I also have a co-worker named Ng, who is US-based. His name is
> pronounced [EN].

Same goes for "Ana Ng" in the They Might Be Giants song of that name.
But presidential half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng pronounces it as [IN], as
I discuss here:

 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=538


--Ben Zimmer

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