Photography Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professional, enthusiast and amateur photographers. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
In the US/Canada, I've heard Nikon pronounced as nye-con, as in n-eye-con.
When I was in Southeast Asia, I heard it pronounced as knee-con. I'm assuming everywhere else in the world would pronounce it this way as well.
Is there a correct or universal way of pronouncing "Nikon"? I got some funny looks when I pronounced it as the former during my stay in SE Asia.
This is a regional thing - there is no universal way per se. In the UK most people pronounce it nick-on.
Considering Nikon is Japanese, however, and in Japan it's pronounced knee-con, one could argue that that is the 'correct' pronunciation. The Wikipedia article on Nikon gives the following pronunciation guide, which is very Japanese, with a palatised n at the end:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Nikon.ogg
I live and work in Japan as a translator and am fully bilingual, with a number of bilingual camera geeks in my social circle (some of whom actually work for Nikon).
I can confirm that there is no "correct" way to pronounce the word. Bilinguals when speaking Japanese pronounce it ニコン, which cannot be correctly replicated with English phonemes (the i is like an "ee" sound but shorter, the o is an "oh" sound but shorter, and the final n sound just doesn't exist in English). When speaking English, we pronounce it as Nigh-kon when speaking North American English and Nick-on when speaking British English.
In conversations with North American bilinguals, many voice the opinion that it sounds pretentious to pronounce it Nick rather than Nike when speaking with a North American accent. But that's a matter of personal taste, not correctness.
In Japanese, the letter i (and character for it) is pronounced "ee" and it is a Jawpawneese word so, therefore, it is Neekawn just as a Toyota Celica is properly said Celica.
