I’m not saying this to anyone in particular, but I’ve heard people pronounce Django incorrectly way too often. The "dj" in Django is a hard J, like in the word "jury" or "jolly". You don’t pronounce the D.
Update: Alex Limi tells me I’m wrong too, and it’s a soft J, like… damn, I can’t think of a word that uses a soft J in English.
I’m not sure I can use that pronunciation, I’m afraid I’ll sound all Frenchy and weird. I’ll give it a go. Zhango zhango zhango… hmm…
Another update: confirming my original pronunciation, Adrian says it is a hard J. Alex is just too European for his own good. Does the debate rage on? Hopefully not.
Alexander Limi | 02-Aug-07 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
Actually, no. :-)
It’s named after Django Reinhardt, and his name is pronounced “zhane-go rhine-heart” (approximation).
So it’s not the hard J in jury/jolly.
Adrian Holovaty | 02-Aug-07 at 10:05 pm | Permalink
I’m basing the following on pronunciation of Django Reinhardt, after whom the framework is named –
It’s like the “J” in jolly. The French pronounce “Django” as “Zhaaango” (with the first syllable rhyming with Zsa Zsa Gabor’s first name), but we ignorant Americans pronounce it so that it rhymes with “dang-oh.”
Aristotle Pagaltzis | 02-Aug-07 at 11:10 pm | Permalink
It always seemed to me that the “D” in front of the name forced a hard “j” pronounciation. Likewise I felt that the “g” belongs with the “o”. So in my mind “Django” sounds like “jungle” except it ends with “-oh” instead of “-’l”.
I was utterly weirded out when I heard someone in a screencast pronounce it “zhæn·go”. I don’t think I could ever get used to that. Praise be to Adrian for sparing me.
;-)James Tauber | 03-Aug-07 at 1:58 am | Permalink
A “hard j” is actually just an affricate made up of a “d” + a “soft j”.
So in other words, the “j” in Django is itself a “soft j” but the overall initial sound cluster is the affricate “hard j”.
(I tried to use the International Phonetic Alphabet in this post but preview suggested it wouldn’t work)
Hamish Lawson | 03-Aug-07 at 3:00 am | Permalink
Wikipedia gives the pronunciation of Django Reinhardt as “dʒ”, that is, the hard “j” of “jam”.
Hamish Lawson | 03-Aug-07 at 3:20 am | Permalink
I can’t think of a word that uses a soft J in English.
“abrasion”, “adhesion”, “allusion”, “collision”, “conclusion”, “erasure”, “fusion”, “lesion”, “occasion”, “vision”.
[editors note: no wonder I couldn’t think of any of them, none of them actually use the letter J]
Sean Reifschneider | 03-Aug-07 at 4:19 am | Permalink
The biggest problem I have with Django is the name. And it’s all my own fault. Every time I think Django to myself, I always make it into that song about the dog “DJ-A-N-G-O. And Django was his name-o”. You have now been infected.
Sean
Chris McAvoy | 03-Aug-07 at 5:52 am | Permalink
Now, how do you pronounce “cache?”
“Cash.”
-not-
“Catch.”
That one makes lasers shoot out of my ears.
Bryguy | 03-Aug-07 at 8:27 am | Permalink
I took my cue from Woody Allen’s pronunciation of Django Reinhardt in his movie “Sweet and Lowdown” (with Sean Penn- a fantastic movie). It’s a hard J if you believe Woody, and I do.
The soft J sound is probably the one best known to Americans as in Zsa Zsa Gabor, or as in Dr. Zhivago, but it’s moot anyway.
brantley | 03-Aug-07 at 10:43 am | Permalink
Soft ‘j’, hard ‘j’, whatever. Let’s not forget the crucial point: it is definitely NOT “Duh-Jango”.
Popcorn Mariachi | 03-Aug-07 at 11:56 am | Permalink
The one time I had to say the name out loud I got “Dyango” But I’m proably alone in that sillyness. I’ve said “java” as “yava” more than once.
Robin | 03-Aug-07 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
I don’t know what “hard” and “soft” J means, does it mean whether it’s voiced or not?
Ian Bicking | 03-Aug-07 at 12:54 pm | Permalink
I believe they are both voiced. I think it is whether or not your tongue hits your palette (the top of your mouth). A soft J is like a voiced sh.
James Tauber | 03-Aug-07 at 1:00 pm | Permalink
Robin,
“soft j” = the sound made by ’s’ in all those examples given by Hamish in comment #6
“hard j” = the sound made by ‘j’ in Java, jolly, James, etc
If you’re wondering why it’s called a “soft j” given it’s not normally written with a “j” in English, it’s because some languages like French, it is written with a “j”.
The difference is not one of voice. Both “soft j” and “hard j” are voiced. The unvoiced version of a “soft j” is often written in English as “sh” as in “ship”. The unvoiced version of a “hard j” is often written “ch” as in “chip”.
Note that “ch” there is really a combination of a “t” with a “sh” (that combination is called an affricate)
Similarly, the “hard j” is really a combination of “d” with a “soft j”.
So in a language where “j” = “soft j” (like French), “dj” = “hard j”.
Note finally that “soft j” is to “sh” as “z” is to “s” and so a “soft j” is often transcribed “zh”.
Robin | 03-Aug-07 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
Thank you both for your explanations. Are there other sounds which are referred to as soft or hard in English?
So then, the way I pronounce the name is with a “hard j” and the vowels like in German or Italian.
James Tauber | 03-Aug-07 at 2:13 pm | Permalink
I’ve also heard “hard” and “soft” applied to variations of what is written “g”, although somewhat confusingly “soft g” = “hard j” (e.g. “German”). “Hard g” is then the first sound of “goat”.
I’ve also heard people talk about “hard c” = “c” in “cat” and “soft c” = “c” in “city”.
While they may have been used in traditional grammars, “hard” and “soft” aren’t technical terms used by linguists nowadays — at least not in my experience. I only used them here as that’s what other people were doing and I thought if I talked about voiced postalveolar affricates and the like, it wouldn’t help :-)
Technically,
hard j = voiced postalveolar affricate
soft j = voiced postalveolar fricative
hard g = voiced velar plosive
soft g = voiced postalveolar affricate
hard c = voiceless velar plosive
soft c = voiceless postalveolar fricative
I suspect the hard/soft distinction is relative position on the dimension: fricative >> affricate >> plosive which has to do with how interrupted the airflow is during production.
But let me just reiterate brantley’s point: the crucial point is Django is definitely NOT pronounced “Duh-Jango”.
Eric Florenzano | 03-Aug-07 at 2:40 pm | Permalink
Haha, this discussion rocks. I actually ran across someone who called it Dee-jango…it was ridiculous.
grzywacz | 03-Aug-07 at 7:08 pm | Permalink
This is funny, the pronounciation is explained in the docs on: http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/faq/#who-s-behind-this (2nd question)
Robin | 03-Aug-07 at 7:09 pm | Permalink
Thanks again, James. I looked the linguistic terms up in Wikipedia, it explains them nicely. “Soft c” is a “normal s”, so it should be “voiceless alveolar fricative”, right?
I hadn’t realised up to now that the only distinction between “k” and “hard g” lies in their voicing – another thing learned as a hobby linguist :).
Henrik Lied | 06-Aug-07 at 6:51 am | Permalink
In Norway it’s pronounced dj-an-goo. :-)
Al Brown | 11-Jun-08 at 4:56 pm | Permalink
I grew up reading the facade and pronouncing it like its spelled. To me, I seemed knowledgeable but it turned out to just be a fa kaid.
kristine | 06-Nov-08 at 11:35 am | Permalink
i think it basically depends on your orientation. In my case, since I’m a Filipina, I, or should i say, We pronounce DJANGO as “JANG-GO”.. yeah, with the hard J sound.. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Django Bustamante.. who is famous in Billiards..