I don't think you're understanding me here. When it comes to foreign words adopted into the American dialect of the English language, all pronunciation rules are effectively rendered useless. Was the original sound butchered? Yes. Do its spelling and pronunciation conform to traditional English rules, such as they are? No. But it IS pronounced a-ni-may in American English now, and that's really all there is to it.

It would help if you didn't view the Japanese anime and the English anime as the same word. Really, they're just cognates at this point. We didn't have our own term for the stuff, so we took the Japanese word and developed a separate, similar word from it. Effectively, its a commandeered loan word.

I'm starting to feel like I'm teaching an intro level linguistics class here.

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lets call the whole thing off...

http://youtu.be/Dg2HKMFsers

You do realize that anime came from animate and not animation right? This is not the only word either. A lot of french words keep the same pronunciation such as Touche. English really does not have set rules for spelling or pronunciation since its origins is actually a mix between languages found on the British Isles. The English language is not very logical at all with many of the words coming from separate languages although Germanic is the most common. Other languages usually have set rules with few exceptions unlike the English language. I also am good with languages. I can become fluent in a language in quickly. I learned Mandarin and Cantonese at the same time though so I was confused especially with all the characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

Your suggestions of anima and animei, uh... wouldn't sound right either.
We say anime phonetically ænime.
However, phonetically anima would sound something like ænima and animei would sound something like ænimaj if you were to follow similar patterns in our pronunciation.

Ever bother you how colonel is pronounced?

How do you say butter? I say budder.

Tomayto, tomahto. People will pronounce however they wish. English is a messed up language and everyone knows, so just deal with it.

If this has already been answered, I'm sorry for repeating, but I was getting confused by reading all the posts as to what the original question even was.

I'm an English native, I live in Japan and speak a little Japanese, I also teach English to Japanese people, so I hope I can answer this.

Japanese syllables all end in vowel sounds, bar 'n', which is special. So anime is A, as in apple, NI as in neat (a nee sound) and ME as in meh. However, English speakers tend to say A as they would for animation, with is a [ae]. This sound does not exist in Japanese, so when the Japanese adopted the word animation, they changed [ae] to [a]. English vowels tend to be longer as well, especially at the ends of words.

Regarding acccent, Japanese is a very flat language, since the accent on a word is very important as words are changed depending on the accent they carry. For example, hashi is bridge, edge and chopsticks. For bridge the shi carries the accent, for edge there is no accent and for chopsticks, the ha carries the accent. There are certain rules governing pitch in Japanese, so it ends up much more even toned when compared to English. It is like Japanese is a boat ride and English is a rollarcoaster in terms of ups and downs, (not that Japanese pitch doesn't change, but if you ask a Japanese speaker and an English speaker to read the same sentence, I gurantee the English speaker stresses twice as many syllables.)

When the Japanese say anime, they give each syllable an equal stress. However, when English speakers say anime, they tend to go up and down, as they would if saying animation. It might sound strange to you, but it is just a nuance of English to constantly vary our pitch. Actually, it is that nuance which most English speakers that learn Japanese find hardest to alter, and incorrect pitch is the biggest giveaway of a non-native Japanese speaker.

I hope this helps a little.

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The pen is mightier than the sword...and considerably easier to write with.

Not sure why this matters.

People speak in whatever way is comfortable to them, but also in a way that is understandable, of course.

Don't know why they have to be "American" though. I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people in other countries besides the U.S. who pronounce the word in a non-native (Japanese) manner.

Silly question. Now, if you're curious on how "Americans" (or whatever nationality of people you like to specifize) or even just people in general pronounce the word "manga," redirect yourself here instead of trying to making yourself sound like some superior being by pronouncing anime "right" and trying to degrade "Americans" who, according to you, seem to pronounce the word "wrong."

That is all,
Pika.

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That neutral U.S accent you're referring to is a dialect called Standard American English. It's standardized because it tries to adhere to the rules(that educators use) for its pronunciation. I'm from Philly and ours' sounds about how you'd expect Standard to sound, though supposedly we say Mall and water(like wa-der) differently. I'm guessing yours is just similar to the Philly style, close but not quite standard, and less based on the more well known Texan dialect.

That's not that surprising in a city. It's affected by whether the people around you are more exposed to books, films, and college educated folk, T.V, where people tend to try not to have a noticeable dialect.

Anyway, people basically view it as a loanword that's pronounced a certain way that they conform to. Should it then be written differently? Well, there's currently no trouble with it.

Also as a bit of history. I remember back in the day when people were just talking about it, every once in awhile people would mention that it was french(it wasn't), as in the term came by way of France, not the animation. Because that's how things were, people didn't suddenly know everything about anime. People would ask how it was pronounce, they sought confirmation like from someone who seemed to know, or a book.

True, but the point here is that saying "Americans says that" is wrong...

why?

because not only English speakers are Americans.


You wouldn't had said Germans are communist before the fall of the Berlin Wall right?, it's the same.

Last edited by BlackOrion at 5:04 pm, Nov 1 2012

If you know your European history, you would know that not all Germans were communists - hence the Berlin Wall that was built to separate West Germany with socialist East Germany.

"American people of the United States
Americans, or American people, are the citizens of the United States of America. The country is home to people of different national origins. As a result, Americans do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship." - Wikipedia

What else do people call dwellers in the U.S. ? United Statesians? That word doesn't officially exist. If you want to make a case for people living in Latin America, which is a region, not a particular country, you can simply call those people by the country in which they live. Such as Brazilians, for people living in Brazil.

As for the pronunciation, I asked several friends, and they all pronounced it differently based on how they interpret the appearance of the word. So without an official authority on the pronunciation, I'm afraid its usage has become popularized to suit what a particular group of people want to pronounce it, and the rest is more peer conformity.

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Nulla in mundo pax sincera
"Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth." - Albert Camus

I know History, therefore i said " YOU WOULDN'T" had said german are communist before the fall of the wall, it's the same logic with which you wouldn't say all Americans speak English

I don't understand what you are trying to get at

What are you talking about?! Anime(may,mei) is the accepted, AUTHORITATIVE pronunciation. There's no question of that. Any documentary, book, dictionary will give that.