{"id":152,"date":"2026-05-23T09:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T09:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2026-05-23T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T09:37:47","slug":"is-it-ih-ran-or-e-ron-inside-the-politics-of-pronunciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=152","title":{"rendered":"Is it \u2018Ih\u2011ran\u2019 or \u2018E\u2011ron\u2019? Inside the politics of\u00a0pronunciation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

With the war in Iran a topic on everyone\u2019s lips, you might have noticed an inconsistency in the way that nation\u2019s name is said, varying between a more native-like \u201cIh-ron\u201d pronunciation and a more Americanized \u201cIh-ran\u201d one. <\/p>\n

Read more War on Iran during nuclear negotiations undermines the US\u2019s ability to talk peace around the world \u2212 and the effects won\u2019t end when Trump leaves\u00a0office<\/a><\/p>\n

An everyday listener might just chalk this up as being the result of regional differences or the version we learned growing up, like the alternate ways Americans have of saying \u201cdata\u201d or \u201croof.\u201d <\/p>\n

But as a linguist who studies what our accents reveal about our histories and social identities, I know that the way we pronounce things often gives off clues about who we are and what we believe in. <\/p>\n

That appears to be the case with these two distinct pronunciations.<\/p>\n

The sound of politics<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s probably not a big surprise to learn that listeners often hear certain words or accents as indicating someone\u2019s political inclinations. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s because people are primed to notice patterns that mark group membership \u2013 be it a style of clothes or pronouncing \u201cfire\u201d more like \u201cfar.\u201d Once they notice these patterns, people then tend to assign whatever traits are believed to characterize that group to the sounds of their speech.<\/p>\n

For instance, researchers examined how people perceived potential political candidates with a Southern vs. non-Southern American accent. They wrote in 2018 that they discovered listeners perceived Southern-sounding politicians as more likely to be conservative and to hold right-leaning views on issues such as gun rights and abortion. All that from hearing someone pronounce \u201cpin\u201d like \u201cpen\u201d or say \u201cbah bah\u201d for \u201cbye.\u201d <\/p>\n

This suggests that even a small difference in the way a vowel is pronounced can suggest a lot more about political ideology than you might imagine, even if that suggestion is not always accurate. <\/p>\n

Nationalism and names<\/h2>\n

Going back to the question of what drives variation in the pronunciation of Iran, a linguistic study examining politics and pronunciation during the Iraq War offers some insight.<\/p>\n

In analyzing 2007 House of Representatives debates about sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, linguists found that a congress member\u2019s political party affiliation was the strongest predictor of how the \u201ca\u201d vowel in Iraq was pronounced. <\/p>\n

Republicans preferred the anglicized short \u201ca\u201d pronunciation closer to \u201cear-RACK,\u201d while Democrats preferred a more \u201cah\u201d-like one, as in \u201cear-ROCK.\u201d The authors suggest that the Democratic preference, approximating a more native pronunciation, was motivated by greater multicultural sensitivity. <\/p>\n

The pronunciation of the \u201ci\u201d vowel also exhibited a more anglicized option, as in \u201cEYE-rack\/rock,\u201d which was also examined. Unlike the \u201ca\u201d vowel, a more \u201ceye\u201d-like pronunciation by itself did not significantly correlate with partisanship.<\/p>\n

Two later studies, in 2011 and 2018, of everyday speakers who were asked to pronounce Iraq in nonpolitical contexts discovered no significant difference by political affiliation. The biggest predictor favoring an \u201cear-ROCK\u201d pronunciation was that a person spoke multiple languages, as the \u201cah\u201d vowel sound is more frequent in languages commonly spoken in the U.S., such as Spanish, French and Italian. <\/p>\n

Read more Overconfidence is how wars are lost \u2212 lessons from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ukraine for the war in Iran were\u00a0ignored<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite not directly patterning with politics, when people were questioned explicitly about how saying \u201cear-RACK\u201d or \u201cear-ROCK\u201d tied into political views, the \u201cah\u201d pronunciation of the vowel was indeed heard as linked with liberalism, an association particularly strong for those who used \u201cah\u201d and were liberal themselves.<\/p>\n

This suggests that people might have picked up on this pattern from hearing politicians. They were aware of the fact that this vowel variation had become, in relevant contexts, symbolic of liberal vs. conservative stances.<\/p>\n

Respect and pronunciation<\/h2>\n

In looking more generally at the pronunciation of borrowed words written with the letter \u201ca,\u201d like that of \u201cpasta\u201d or \u201ctobacco,\u201d linguist Charles Boberg suggests that Americans generally follow two possible paths, either pronouncing it with the short \u201ca\u201d like in \u201cbat\u201d or with the \u201cah\u201d like in \u201cfather.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boberg suggests that attitudinal factors play a role in the choice between the two. Since many Americans associate the \u201cah\u201d pronunciation with more education and sophistication, given its connection to upper-crust British use in words like \u201cbath\u201d or \u201caunt,\u201d there has been an increasing tendency for Americans to use \u201cah\u201d in words borrowed since World War II, as with \u201corigami\u201d or \u201cnacho.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in looking at variability in the pronunciation of Iraq, other linguists hypothesized that the \u201cah\u201d vowel is only heard as more sophisticated when a source language is held in high esteem \u2013 as with the British-derived \u201cah\u201d in \u201caunt\u201d \u2013 or when those speaking foreign languages are well regarded. <\/p>\n

In contrast, when there is less respect for a people or a place, the choice of an Americanized vowel rather than the more accurate native one might be preferred. This attitude difference may well explain much of the variation in politicians\u2019 pronunciation of Iraq \u2013 and possibly Iran.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, in their study of congressional variation in pronunciation of Iraq, these researchers found that, beyond party affiliation, the politician\u2019s war stance \u2013 for or against sending additional troops \u2013 was a significant determinant of which vowel was used. If they used the \u201cear-RACK\u201d pronunciation, they were more likely to favor sending more troops to the country.<\/p>\n

Trump and \u2018I-ran\u2019<\/h2>\n

While there is, as of yet, no similar study comparing politicians and their pronunciation of Iran, it is interesting to note that both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say the name in the more anglicized fashion, using the same vowel as in \u201cear-RACK\u201d \u2013 that is, as \u201cIh-RAN\u201d not \u201cIh-RON.\u201d <\/p>\n

Considering the highly contested nature of this war, this presidential preference for the anglicized version of the name may be driven by a similar politicized positioning to that found for the pronunciation of Iraq. Trump and Vance may be underscoring their \u201cpro-America\u201d focus by creating a linguistic and ideological distance with the named nation and its speakers.<\/p>\n

A similar linguistic contrast was made during the Vietnam War, when \u201cVietNAM\u201d was commonly pronounced as having the same short \u201ca\u201d sound as in \u201cbat,\u201d including from the lips of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Now, years later, the \u201cVietNOM\u201d pronunciation dominates, and the \u201cNAM\u201d version is virtually absent in those born in more recent eras. <\/p>\n

In the same way, Americans might eventually find a linguistic middle ground in the current pronunciation debate over Iran. But it might be a while before peace in the Middle East prevails long enough to give the next generation a linguistic clean slate.<\/p>\n

Read more What Detroit can learn from participatory budgeting processes in NYC, Boston and\u00a0Brazil<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both President Trump and Vice President Vance pronounce Iran as \u2018Ih-RAN,\u2019 not \u2018Ih-RON.\u2019 A linguist says that how the country\u2019s name is pronounced may be a political choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[315],"tags":[582,327,461,389,578,579,584,5,580,581,583,442,394],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-accents","tag-donald-trump","tag-george-w-bush","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-iraq-war","tag-jd-vance","tag-linguistics","tag-political-ideology","tag-politicians","tag-pronunciation","tag-us-congress","tag-us-iran-conflict"],"yoast_head":"\nIs it \u2018Ih\u2011ran\u2019 or \u2018E\u2011ron\u2019? 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