Perhaps this question is not the most important linguistic problem in the world, but still many needlewomen, going to the store, do not know how to pronounce the name of this company correctly!
Jean, Jan, Janome, and even the affectionate name that goes in sewing circles, Zhanomka - perhaps this company has more pronunciation options than any other!
Of course, no matter what you call Janome's sewing machines, the quality of your work on them will not change, but, like real perfectionists, we will try to figure out today which option is right!
50s Janome Advertising As many people know, Janome is a Japanese brand (by the way, the name translates as "the eye of a snake", it was he who was the logo of the company), so her pronunciation is directly related to the peculiarities of the Japanese language. In Japanese, the syllable is alphabetical, which means that one hieroglyph of each of the two Japanese alphabets (and there really are two of them, Katakana and Hiragana!) Means not one letter, as we are used to, but a whole syllable. Therefore, in the word Janome, the last letter will be pronounced as part of the syllable, and not remain dumb, as in many English words that have an e at the end.
In this case, the stress in Japanese is radically different from the Russian language - in Russian the stress is strong, that is, we always perfectly understand what a vowel is stressed, and in Japanese the stress is tonic, that is, only the tone of the voice changes, but not the force of the “blow”. As a result, Japanese words are spoken evenly and most syllables have the same duration when pronounced. This feature of the language suggests that there is no accent in the word Janome.
Many people mistakenly believe that Janome is a word of French origin, therefore they pronounce Ja as "ms", but in reality there is no adequate transmission of this sound to Russian or English, and the closest option is "ja".
It turns out that Dzhanome’s pronunciation will be most true, but the question with emphasis remains, on the whole, open, because if it is not formally in the original language, there is definitely no right way. In English practice, by the way, the variant with an emphasis on "o" - DzhanOme is accepted. But the official Russian stress can only be confirmed by the source - the Russian branch of the company. In the official video of the manufacturer, we can hear how Janome sounds in Russian:
So, the correct pronunciation is Janome, with an emphasis on the last letter!
Photo: janome.com, Wirecutter
