Context: enum as an abbreviation/short for enumeration.
This question is about pronunciation of the letter E in enum, not about the num part.
I've heard people say both "æ-num" (like in "assign") and /ˈinʌm/ (like the letter E) as it says on wiktionary.
Which one is correct? Are both correct?
Note: Google Translate has this pronunciation description for "enumerate": "əˈ" and "əˌ" for "enumeration".
A helpful resource for hearing how English speakers pronounce things is Youglish. You can listen to its examples for enum to confirm that, as tchrist says, the first syllable is generally pronounced as /i/ (the same as the name of the letter E).
However, even if it is only used by a few speakers, it seems a pronunciation where the first syllable is unstressed and has a reduced vowel (either /əˈnum/ or /ɪˈnum/) also exists, as demonstrated by the following links:
Crockford on JavaScript - Level 7: ECMAScript 5: The New Parts (Nov 14, 2011; Douglas Crockford, at 26:03)
Navigation: SafeArgs - MAD Skills (Oct 19, 2020; Chet Haase, at 7:40)
Jeffrey Richter Using Reflection to implement enumerated types (Aug 21, 2018; Jeffrey Richter, at 15:33 and again at 15:54)
While you did not want information about the second syllable, others may be interested to know that it can either be /num/ or /nʌm/ (or /nəm/).
I don't think "Which one is correct?" is a very meaningful question in the context of words like this (compare the argument over "gif"), but in any case, if you use the pronunciation recommended by tchrist, you shouldn't have to worry about it.
for-n loops but you couldn’t.” If you keep listening he talks about a Boolean enumerable property to control whether it will let you do this.
Wiktionary’s cited /ˈinʌm/ is indeed what native English speaking programmers broadly say phonemically, although in a narrower phonetic transcription [ˈɪjˌnɐm] might serve for most speakers. You would not count those as two separate pronunciations, though.
The first vowel in enum is the so-called FLEECE vowel, the second the so-called STRUT vowel. This makes the first syllable of enum just like the first syllable of e‑mail, and it makes the second syllable of enum pretty much just like the first syllable of number.
That second syllable is almost wholly unreduced, which is why I’ve marked it with secondary stress in the bracketed phonetic transcription. It never compresses to a brief and fully neutralized schwa or to a syllabic consonant [m̩] as it might in something like:
There is no [æ] in assign, so I’m not sure where you’re getting that from. I suspect you’re mishearing the commA vowel /ə/ ther — or, in other words, possibly the FATHER vowel /ɑ/ or the STRUT vowel /ʌ/ or /ɐ/. There is a beg–bag merger but that’s with /ɛ/ and does not occur word-initially.
English words beginning with a written ‹e› of the pattern VCVC, so alternating vowel-consonant-vowel-consonant, can have various pronunciations of their initial vowel, but I don’t believe /æ/ is ever one of them.
Possibilities for pronouncing the start of words written with an initial ‹e› include the following, listed here in decreasing order of frequency:
In general, but probably not so often in enum, how any vowel comes out also greatly depends on the stress and the emphasis placed on the word, because emphatic forms can take on lengthening properties never otherwise heard in normal speech. Plus under fast speech unstressed syllables can shorten towards schwa /ə/ and nearly disappear.
There is no reason to think one would pronounce a clipping of a word exactly the same way as one would the unclipped version but shorter. You’ve changed the stress pattern and the syllable count, and you’ve changed how the word ends. All those things change pronunciation, especially in a stress-timed language like English. Otherwise we’d be saying impede just like we say impediment, and we don’t. Syllables and stress matter a great deal in English, and they change the phonetics through regular phonological processes.
ɪ@Jeff Zeitlin thanks for that view.