# pronunciation: crayon



## stephenlearner

Hi,

How do you pronounce crayon? The IPA shows ['kreɪən], which means the last syllable rhymes with that of bacon. 
But interestingly, when I listened to the audio clips, I found all sounded differently, with the last syllable rhyming with dawn. 

I wonder why. 

Can anyone explain to me? 

Thanks.


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## natkretep

I say and mainly hear /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/. I have heard /'kreɪ.ən/ before, but not as frequently as /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/.

All our WR Dictionaries give two pronunciations: crayon - WordReference.com Dictionary of English


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## entangledbank

I agree: the second vowel is usually full (but 'on', not 'awn'), not neutral.


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## PaulQ

stephenlearner said:


> Can anyone explain to me?


1. It will depend on the accent of the speaker, although I have never heard a pronunciation of crayon  or bacon that is similar to 'dawn'.
2. bacon, dawn, and crayon to me have completely different endings, although, bacon and crayon are very close.
3. In the way that a musician can distinguish between two notes that to me sound identical, so the native speaker hears subtly different sounds as distinct, whereas the student does not. It seems that the student's brain is interpreting the sound to the nearest known sound. (The corollary of this is that students usually have a non-native accent. This is caused by the brain manufacturing sounds that use vowel sounds from their native language to approximate the English (or other foreign language) vowel sounds.
4. IPA is good, but not perfect.


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## Keith Bradford

I'm astonished at all those BE audio clips. The Jamaican accent is the only one which approximates to what I've always taken as the norm, where _crayon_ rhymes with _Malayan_.  I accept that in the US the final syllable is stressed, but in BE it's not, and so one would expect /kreɪ'ən/.  This is what Collins places first, before the /-ɒn/ version, but nobody on the clips pronounces it that way.


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## stephenlearner

entangledbank said:


> I agree: the second vowel is usually full (but 'on', not 'awn'), not neutral.



Thanks. 

What do you mean to say the second vowel is full, not neutral?


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## lingobingo

Keith Bradford said:


> I'm astonished at all those BE audio clips. …  I accept that in the US the final syllable as stressed, but in BE it's not


I agree. I really don’t think most Brits say *crayon* with quite such a distinctive emphasis on the second syllable. I think the problem is that when a single word is deliberately pronounced, as in these clips, it gives a false impression of how the word normally sounds in context.


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## stephenlearner

PaulQ said:


> 2. bacon, dawn, and crayon to me have completely different endings, although, bacon and crayon are very close.



To you, what is the ending of crayon?  What is the vowel in there?


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## Hermione Golightly

Keith wrote in #5


> The Jamaican accent is the only one which approximates to what I've always taken as the norm, where _crayon_ rhymes with _Malayan_.


Same here. Almost the same as in 'bacon'.


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## Hermione Golightly

/'kreɪ.ən/


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## entangledbank

By full I mean it has a stressable vowel: the 'on' of /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/. It does not so often have the neutral (unstressable) vowel of /'kreɪ.ən/.


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## Hermione Golightly

Maybe there's a northern influence in my case.


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## PaulQ

stephenlearner said:


> To you, what is the ending of crayon?  What is the vowel in there?


/ˈbeɪkən/
/ˈkreɪɒn/

(However, the difference, to me, is slight.)


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## velisarius

I'm as astonished as Keith Bradford. Most of the versions to be heard on our dictionary page sound quite like the name of Antigone's old adversary, Creon. I use a schwa.

I imagine those people who say "ac-tor" also say "cray-on".


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## natkretep

velisarius said:


> I imagine those people who say "ac-tor" also say "cray-on".


Erm, I have /ˈaktə/ (not /ˈaktɔː/) but /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/.


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## AnythingGoes

Keith Bradford said:


> I accept that in the US the final syllable is stressed ....


It isn't. We stress the first and pronounce the second with the vowel of _on._


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## velisarius

natkretep said:


> Erm, I have /ˈaktə/ (not /ˈaktɔː/) but /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/.



Ah, well, I didn't say that the reverse also applies.


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## lingobingo

Surely no one _actually_ says actor with the stress on *-tor* unless they’re extracting the urine?


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## stephenlearner

Keith Bradford said:


> The Jamaican accent is the only one which approximates to what I've always taken as the norm, where _crayon_ rhymes with _Malayan_.





Hermione Golightly said:


> Keith wrote in #5
> 
> Same here. Almost the same as in 'bacon'.



You said "almost the same". To me, that is not identical. 

So, to you, crayon rhymes with Malayan, but not with bacon.

But IPA shows that Malayan and bacon (and lion) have the same endings.


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## natkretep

It's interesting that Cambridge Dictionary gives only *one* BrE pronunciation: /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/ - crayon Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary

And Oxford Dictionaries gives only *one *BrE pronunciation: /ˈkreɪən/ - crayon | Definition of crayon in English by Oxford Dictionaries

Make of that what you will!


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## heypresto

Chambers gives: _/krāˈən or -on/ _

Generosity, realism or fence-sitting?

Edit: the 'big' OED gives:_ Brit.  /ˈkreɪɒn/, /ˈkreɪən/,  U.S. /ˈkreɪˌɑn/_


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## Keith Bradford

I accept that in the US the final syllable is stressed ....



AnythingGoes said:


> It isn't. We stress the first and pronounce the second with the vowel of _on._


Well there you go.  To me, pronouncing the "on" ending makes it sound stressed, equally with the "cray-" part !


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## Hermione Golightly

Stephen, we didn't learn to speak using IPA and dictionaries!  To me the '-on'  sounds in those words when spoken in a sentence are very much the same, so alike that it doesn't make a jot of difference. We only listen to the stressed sounds anyway, knowing instinctively what the unstressed syllables must be to make sense in context. It's the rhythm that matters.


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## Loob

I'm with those for whom "crayon" rhymes with "play on", and not with "Malayan".


natkretep said:


> It's interesting that Cambridge Dictionary gives only *one* BrE pronunciation: /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/ - crayon Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary
> 
> And Oxford Dictionaries gives only *one *BrE pronunciation: /ˈkreɪən/ - crayon | Definition of crayon in English by Oxford Dictionaries
> 
> Make of that what you will!


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## AnythingGoes

Loob said:


> I'm with those for whom "crayon" rhymes with "play on", and not with "Malayan".


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## RM1(SS)

Add me to the /'kreɪ.ən/ crowd.


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## ewie

And another vote for /ˈkreɪ.ɒn/.

I wonder how those folk who say /'kreɪ.ən/ would pronounce _rayon_.


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## velisarius

I pronounce it "ray-on", similar to "nylon". They are more recent coinages. _Crayon_ is from the French, apparently - and we usually do our best not to sound too Frenchified when we poach their words, don't we?


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## Hermione Golightly

"Cra 'yon" would sound French to me, if you left off the 'n' and rolled the 'r'.


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## ewie

The /ɒn/ in _crayon _/*'*kreɪɒn/ is no more stressed than it is in _nylon _/*'*nailɒn/, _neon _/*'*ni:ɒn/, _rayon _/*'*reɪɒn/ etc. etc.


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## lingobingo

… depending on how you pronounce it


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## ewie




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## lingobingo

You seem to be saying that everyone pronounces it the same way, which is clearly not the case.


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## Loob

I agree with ewie's post 30.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say _*crayon *_with the stress on the second syllable, lingo  - have you?


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## Oddmania

This map doesn't even have the "CRAY-un" version  On Forvo, most people say "CRAY ON" but "CRAY-un" also exists. If you have a full vowel in "coupon", then why not in "crayon"?

On the bottom of the page on Forvo, you can hear a full sentence with the word "crayons" in it, and one lady from the U.S (Maryland) actually pronounces it "crowns".


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## lingobingo

I seem to have misinterpreted what was meant by stressed.  Take no notice of me.


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## Loob




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## Keith Bradford

This business of stress: in #21 Heypresto says *the 'big' OED gives:*_* Brit. /ˈkreɪɒn/, /ˈkreɪən/, U.S. /ˈkreɪˌɑn/*._

It's not easy to see, but in the final word there's a small dot after the letter *ɪ* which indicates a secondary stress.  This is what I was talking about, sorry if I confused people. This occurs in _neon, rayon _and _nylon_, but not in _lion, Malayan _and_... crayon_ according to some of us.

There you go. "It wouldn't do for us all to think the same, or there'd be no call for mixed biscuits".


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## london calling

Hermione Golightly said:


> Maybe there's a northern influence in my case.


But not in mine and I say /'kreɪ.ən/ too.


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## velisarius

I've resolved to start using "coloured pencil" instead. That's "pencil" with a schwa of course.


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## london calling

velisarius said:


> I've resolved to start using "coloured pencil" instead. That's "pencil" with a schwa of course.


Ah, but that's not necessarily the same as a crayon.


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## Loob

Keith Bradford said:


> This business of stress: in #21 Heypresto says *the 'big' OED gives:*_* Brit. /ˈkreɪɒn/, /ˈkreɪən/, U.S. /ˈkreɪˌɑn/*._
> 
> It's not easy to see, but in the final word there's a small dot after the letter *ɪ* which indicates a secondary stress.  This is what I was talking about, sorry if I confused people. This occurs in _neon, rayon _and _nylon_, but not in _lion, Malayan _and_... crayon_ according to some of us.
> 
> There you go. "It wouldn't do for us all to think the same, or there'd be no call for mixed biscuits".


Sorry, Keith, but I have to say "Hmmm" to this.

The OED's transcription shows no secondary stress for the  /_*ˈkreɪɒn/ *_pronunciation in BrE.

I have no difficulty with your statement that the second syllable of _crayon, _for you, has a schwa. But I think you should beware of drawing conclusions about stress patterns from others' statements that their pronunciation doesn't_._


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## Language Hound

I grew up pronouncing "crayon" as *one syllable *and rhyming with "man" (===> _cran)_
even though I never lived in the geographical area indicated for this pronunciation on the map Oddmania included in his post #35.
As an adult, I have to make a conscious effort to pronounce it as two syllables ("cray" + "on" with the stress on the first syllable, rhyming with "rayon")
since I draw blank looks when I pronounce it "cran."


Oddmania said:


> This map doesn't even have the "CRAY-un" version  On Forvo, most people say "CRAY ON" but "CRAY-un" also exists. If you have a full vowel in "coupon", then why not in "crayon"?
> 
> On the bottom of the page on Forvo, you can hear a full sentence with the word "crayons" in it, and one lady from the U.S (Maryland) actually pronounces it "crowns".


I have never heard "crayons" pronounced "crowns" and am having trouble detecting the yellow area(s) on the map.


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## kentix

We, too, as kids, always called them crans. "Hey, pass me the red cran." Even when we went to the store and bought the fancy box with 64 crayons with the built-in sharpener in the back, by the time we got home with them and used them they were crans.

I didn't live in the green area, but that's just the area that cran is predominant. It exists in other areas, too, as a secondary pronunciation. Today I say Crayon like rayon.


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## kentix

Oddmania said:


> On the bottom of the page on Forvo, you can hear a full sentence with the word "crayons" in it, and one lady from the U.S (Maryland) actually pronounces it "crowns".


Wow, it's hard to believe until you hear it. It sounds like she is pronouncing it as if the y simply isn't there. Crah-own, which comes out sounding like crown.


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## RM1(SS)

kentix said:


> I didn't live in the green area,


I see neither green nor yellow on that map -- where are they?


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## kentix

There's a pale green blob in the northwest corner of Wisconsin (at least with my color rendering). If it's pale, it means even there it's not the overwhelming pronunciation.

I don't see yellow for sure at all. Maybe there's a small spot in Maryland where the woman mentioned above is from. Or maybe it's not the majority anywhere but is mixed in with the other colors.


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## RM1(SS)

Aha.  Thank you.

Apparently Minnesotans don't waste a lot of time talking about crayons....


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## kentix

I guess that means there's some kind of tie, but I'm not sure.


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