why are silent letters kept in the word’s spelling? Why can’t it be just Jango in place of Django?
In: Culture
Because they often derive from other languages, containing an interesting story for those willing to listen.
I pronounce those two different, but that might be just me.
When I pronounce Dj my tongue is more to the front of my mouth.
One big reason is consistency. People usually don’t really read words phonetically, i.e. by sounding them out. They see groupings of letters in context and turn them directly into words. Tihs is why stneneecs lkie tihs are otfen sitll radealbe! And why people still write “through” or “light” when they make no sense phonetically compared to “thru” or “lite.” Jango may make more sense, but Django is what people are used to reading and writing.
Django is French. In English we pronounce all our j’s “dj” so this seems redundant to us. An example of the J sound in French would be in the name Jacques. You don’t pronounce it “jock” with the dj sound
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