How would you pronounce Zana ?

[RoseApp]

My friend assumed people would pronounce her child’s name Zana like Zah-nah as in Suzanna but several people have pronounced it as Zar-na

I thought it was a form of Gaelic. I apologise, seems it’s a Brittonic language.

How dare you. My insults are excellent.

Aa isn't perfect, I agree.
It's much less confusing than ar though.

Same

Not for half the people on this thread who have understood it perfectly?

I've not seen any good insults on this thread but I'm sure you also have other outlets for insults.

Exactly - half the people.
That excludes another half.

I missed how you would prefer to convey the long a vowel sound?

Which is why people also tried other variants to explain it you. Different ways to make it clear. Most people seem to have picked it up, a few have even commented how fascinating it all is. Not you though, you just seem determined to tell us all how wrong we are for describing something in a way that makes automatic sense to us because you don’t like it. But we did try. For you.

Fun fact. It is easier to teach basic phonics to young children up north, than it is down south.

Repeat after me: bad, ban, bat, bash, bath.

In fairness, @rosesareredvioletsareblueaimverytiredandsoareyou may be a dog with a bone on this thread but she's not wrong here. Rhotic accents are the norm, so it's no surprise that using an R (that's an oar, not an arr ) to denote a long vowel causes this argument. Every. Bloody. Time.

It's quite an insular or narrow minded usage IMO.

In fairness, @rosesareredvioletsareblueaimverytiredandsoareyou may be a dog with a bone on this thread but she's not wrong here. Rhotic accents are the norm, so it's no surprise that using an R (that's an oar, not an arr ) to denote a long vowel causes this argument. Every. Bloody. Time.

It's quite an insular or narrow minded usage IMO.

Nope. As has been made abundantly clear, even most rhotic speakers know what the non-rhotics are getting at when they use this method. Including you, from the get-go, I strongly suspect.

They tried to explain why r is appropriate, it isn't.

You said half, I'm quoting you.
I also understand why you think it's fine. Understanding why doesn't mean agreement.

And it's at that point that a normal person would say "oh that doesn't make sense to me. How are you meaning that? It's funny how we all pronounce words differently isn't it?". Not just keep repeating the same "there's no r in zana. There's no r in bath" monotonously again and again.

…..ok. Sure.

But aa isn’t either. And nor is ah. Because ar, aa, and ah are all different sounds and neither ah not aa fit my pronunciation of bath.

Is dog an improvement from pigeon? 😁

Actually, a quick Google will tell you that non-rhotic accents are the norm in England.

And Australia and NZ. And part of the US too.

That wasn’t me.

Nobody has called anybody stupid.
You've just made a really horrible comment though - do you want to self report?

Faie enough. Someone did, I'm replying to several posters.
Please accept my apologies.

Half the population? Who on this thread uses the same vowel sound saying cat and saying cart?
There may be an accent that does simply 'add an r" but I can't think of one.
You acknowledged that in your accent the r in the spelling changes the way you say the vowel sound.

Apology accepted. Welsh is a language but East Anglian is a dialect.