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In Japanese, using Katakana, why is the name Danny written and pronounced ダニー.
Why not just ダニ? I'm not sure why the `i` is being extended when this doesn't
really happen in english.
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2014-09-07T16:38:27.643
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2020-04-28T01:54:38.677
2019-01-22T00:04:18.320
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question
katakana names loanwords
Why is Danny written & pronounced ダニー and not ダニ?
Words brought to Japan from English speakers and which end in 'y' are usually
pronounced with extended 'i' sound.
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2014-09-08T05:54:26.887
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2014-09-08T05:54:26.887
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answer
To build on koji's answer, sometimes you'll see changes in the katakana-
ization of foreign words and names to avoid collisions with native words and
names. An additional incentive for the long "y" sound is that there's a native
word だに, which means "mite or louse" (that is, a small blood-sucking
arthropod). It's probably a *good* thing that the katakana pronunciation of
"Danny" has shifted the way it has. :)
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2019-01-22T00:03:49.733
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2019-01-22T00:03:49.733
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answer
I believe it's simply the way the word was borrowed. Each English or other
loanword in Japanese has or eventually acquires a standard writing. Of course
some have more than one accepted writing, but the point is the transliteration
can **seem** arbitrary or like it's more different from the original
language's pronunciation than it is. Indeed, in some cases it probably is
somewhat arbitrary, the way Japanese speakers end up adopting English, German,
Portuguese or other languages' words. But I doubt anyone knows for sure,
including native Japanese speakers. xP _I_ don't know, that is for sure.

However, I probably _can_ answer adequately in the case of the word you
specifically asked about. To answer this question about Japanese, however,
I'll have to let you in on a little secret about _English_ pronunciation.

First of all, ダニー isn't _necessarily_ one of those words that have a random or
arbitrarily assigned pronunciation in Japanese that is different from English.
Believe it or not, phonetically at least, English actually _does_ feature
short **and** long vowels, like the _"ii"_ in _"Danii"_ ; although unlike
Japanese, vowel length is not phonemic (i.e., it's only _phonetic_ ), but
that's not important.

What this means basically is that while most English speakers (apart from
English linguists and similar groups) don't even realize it, or make a big
deal out of it, vowel length does exist in English. For example, try this:

  1. Say _"bad"_ the way you normally do.
  2. Now say _"bat"_ your usual way.

Listen carefully to the vowel _'a'_ in each word. If you're like most native
English speakers, you'll notice the _'a'_ in _"bad"_ is held slightly longer
than that in _"bat"_. This is because in most varieties and dialects of the
spoken English language, the length the vowel/diphthong in a stressed syllable
is related to whether the consonant or consonant cluster that follows it is
voiced or voiceless. Stated more simply, in English, for single-syllable
words, a pre-consonantal short vowel in a stressed syllable is generally
lengthened before a voiced consonant. Of course, that's a great over-
simplification of the English vowel length system, but you get the point.

Actually, even consonants can be doubled in English, the way they are in
Japanese. This is most clearly evident in the standard American English
pronunciation of _"thirteen"_ , for instance, where most speakers say what
sounds like _"thurt" + "teen"_ instead of the usual British _"thuh" + "teen"_.

Now, _this_ is where your question comes into play. And that's because, in
English, many word-final vowels are spoken long, as well. And native Japanese
speakers, being conditioned to hear the difference between short and long
vowels more explicitly than English speakers, are able to pick up on the fact
that the word-final _'y'_ at the end of _"Danny"_ is pronounced long by most
English speakers. Keep in mind, of course, that English long vowels aren't
**quite** as long as Japanese usually, except in certain dialects, like the
"Southern drawl" of the United States, but even standard American English
features phonetic vowel length, even though it's not taught in school because
it generally doesn't affect/create any minimal pairs (i.e., words that differ
only in vowel length).

So finally, we have an answer:

_"Danny"_ , or _"ダニー"_ in Japanese, was transliterated with a long vowel
because there is a long vowel in the English pronunciation, for most native
speakers. I'm sorry for the long, possibly tedious answer, but it's the most
concise I can explain it without using purely linguistic jargon, and _that_
**would** be inexcusable hehe. =) If you want more information on English
vowel length, there's plenty available on Wikipedia, as well as many other
sites, I'm sure.
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answer