Heard on [adult swim]: "Japan" > [dZei p&n]

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:48 PM -0400 9/8/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>1945 Ernie Pyle _Last Chapter_ (N.Y.: Henry Holt, 1946) 23: I noticed a lot
>of people [in the Marianas] unconsciously pronouncing Japan as "Jay-pan,"
>just as in Africa we always used to say "A-rab" instead of "errab," as we
>were taught in school. Sometimes they carried it into multisyllables, such
>as "We're going to Jay-pan-man-land" tomorrow.
>
>Pyle grew up in west-central Indiana: hence "errab."
>
>JL

Not that far from South Bend, where Ara ("erra") Parseghian would
soon be plying his trade as (extremely successful) coach of Notre
Dame football, during the Era of Ara.

LH

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