pronunciation of UNIQLO in English

[Shinya Suzuki]

Apparently the qlo part is pronounceable!

http://www.japansociety.org/uniqlo_from_tokyo_to_new_york_to_global_brand#
[Quote]
Mr. Hamada asked Mr. Domae [CEO, Uniqlo USA, Inc.]:

The pronunciation of the brand name in English--it's a play on "unique
clothing," but should it be you-NEEK-lo, or YOU-nee-klo?

"Actually we haven't decided how to pronounce it, but a lot of
Americans call it YOU-nee-klo, so that's what I used," Mr. Domae
replied.
[Unquote]

The webpage below contains two sample pronunciations, one of which is
clearly different from either of the above two.

http://forvo.com/word/uniqlo/

Shinya Suzuki

[sharni]

Interesting, I think it's a very cute word... In my personal opinion,
YOU-nee-klo is more natural.

There are a lot of words beginning with 'uni' that place the emphasis
on the 'u' rather than the 'ni', such as unicycle, unity, uniform,
UNICEFなど ..so even though the abbreviation comes from 'unique' which
places emphasis on the 'ni', it would seem strange to pronounce it
like that.

Although, I live in Japan which is where I first heard the word!

On Jan 15, 8:29 pm, Shinya Suzuki <CXP04...@nifty.ne.jp> wrote:
> Apparently the qlo part is pronounceable!
>

> http://www.japansociety.org/uniqlo_from_tokyo_to_new_york_to_global_b...

[Doreen Simmons]

Among some British newcomers I heard 'yoo-nee-kwa-lo' -- but they weren't
very bright, and certainly didn't appreciate being told an easier-to-pronounce alternative. ;-)
Doreen

>Interesting, I think it's a very cute word... In my personal opinion,
>YOU-nee-klo is more natural.
>
>There are a lot of words beginning with 'uni' that place the emphasis

Doreen Simmons
jz8d...@asahi-net.or.jp

[Ben Allen]

i have to agree. linguistically speaking, there is a trend through the
history of English for the stress to move towards the first syllable
of the word, and this is also frequently the case when native speakers
pronounce words from other languages. i at least would also stress the
first syllable of "unique". (full disclosure: i am an American raised
in the south, and my pronunciation/stress patterns naturally reflect
that region's linguistic trendencies)

-ben

--
Benjamin Lowell Allen
Monbukagakusho Research Fellow
Department of Japanese History
The University of Tokyo
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign