Bonsai Pronunciation

[Eric Group]

Ok, so our discussion so far has narrowed it down!.. Or.. Did we expand the possibilities?

It is either "Bon" or "Bone" or "Boon" (with the "oo" being with to he oo sound from "Boon" or "door" which apparently is a large distinction?)

Then it is either "S" or "z" depending on whether you are crashing your plane into an aircraft carrier or whether you are pruning a tree!

Then it is "eye" or "aye"?

I think going forward I will just say the word twelve times when I talk about Bonsai to be sure I cover all possible combinations of options to make sure I don't come off like some country bumpkin who doesn't know the difference!

 

[M. Frary]

Aye aye! Killer. Puts a whole pirate spin on it. I wonder how Captain Morgan says it. Now that would be very interesting.
Standing there,left leg up on a barrel of akadama with concave cutters in hand. Arrrr matey.
Or maybe Forrest Gump. I bet he puts out a doozy interpretation of the word bonsai.
Or maybe Bugs Bunny for that matter. Wonder if his would be carrot bonsai?
Or best of all..... Scooby-Doo! Rut ro raggy!
Ah wordplay fun. It's the best in my book. And it seems it makes people mad. Fun to be had all around!
Ronrai Raggy! Sweet!

 

[DougB]

OH MY! What have we dis-created?

 

[Wrybred]

Bonn-sigh for people who don't care. Bone-sigh for people who actually do.

This is incorrect. It seems the more people know about bonsai the more people over pronounce the word.

I suppose because ours is such a nerdy nitpicky past time, we may become pompous to the point of religious.

But bonsai is a Japanese word. So u need to bend the knee to the Japanese pronunciation.

Like so:

It is Fact, of course, exactly as its spelled, but without anglacising the syllables.

I think, at this point our noses are so high in the air about using bones in our sighs that it probably is unstickable - probably mostly due to years of it making north American bonsai artists feel all a learned n stuff. I will personally continue to defer to the Japanese pronunciation even if excommunication is posited.

Origato gozai e mas

 

[Wrybred]

Bone sigh is correct, but sometimes, unless you put "trees" after it, people outside the bonsai community don't understand you. So I'll sometimes say it like banzai when talking to non-bonsai people, and they know what I'm saying. But once in a while, I'll slip a "banzai" pronunciation around bonsai people, and it feels very wrong.

Banzai means something else. Like" 1000 lives" or something like that.

Here's the real deal

 

[Lorax7]

I blame Karate Kid for pronunciation! BONSAI DANIELSAN! BONSAI!

Why? The Karate Kid got it right! It’s even a plot point in the first movie. Daniel-san pronounces “bonsai” wrong and Mr. Miyagi corrects his pronunciation before giving trees to both him and his mother.

Later in the movie, when Mr. Miyagi is getting drunk and implores Daniel-san to have a drink with him, Daniel-san says the toast, “banzai!”, incorrectly as, “bonsai”, and Mr. Miyagi corrects his pronunciation.

So, if the Karate Kid is at fault, it can only be so via the indirect means of the Mandela Effect.

 

[Sansokuu]

When in Rome...

Maybe it's terrible that I flop between bonsai and bahnsai (I am American/Californian after all ) , but I feel if people are going to be sticklers about proper pronunciation that applies to *all* bonsai terminology that are also Japanese words if you are going to make that effort.

Nebari and shari for example.

 

[vp999]

I only use Bone-zai when im speaking to Ryan Neil.

 

[BrightsideB]

I can only speak on behalf of Americans because I am one and live in America. But we can’t even pronounce many English words so called correctly.

 

[pandacular]

Sorry, but "bone" is not the correct pronunciation either. The o is almost a diphthong, as in "show". The o in bonsai is closer to the sound in "door".

This makes quite a lot of sense given that the word isn’t even a “natively” Japanese word but is a loan of the Chinese pénzāi.