aausernameaa:Hi, How do you pronounce krajono, is it "kraj o no" or "kra jo no"?
How about Brunajo (Brunei)? Is it "Bru naj o" or Bru na jo"?
How about brunejanino (Bruneian woman)? Is it "bru nej a ni no" or what?
Is there any rule on pronunciations? Or you have to remember case by case? Thanks.

So there are two opinions on the pronunciation. Which one is correct?I'm confused. There must be only one way to say it, the other is wrong, I think. You cant just say both are right. Please give me the verdict.

The verdict is that 99.99% of listeners won't tell the difference either way.

aausernameaa:So there are two opinions on the pronunciation. Which one is correct?I'm confused. There must be only one way to say it, the other is wrong, I think. You cant just say both are right. Please give me the verdict.

There may be different opinions, but what the Fundamento writes is correct by definition, so there can be no arguing here: It is kra-jo-no, not kraj-o-no. Roma locuta, causa finita.

Kirilo81:

aausernameaa:So there are two opinions on the pronunciation. Which one is correct?I'm confused. There must be only one way to say it, the other is wrong, I think. You cant just say both are right. Please give me the verdict.

There may be different opinions, but what the Fundamento writes is correct by definition, so there can be no arguing here: It is kra-jo-no, not kraj-o-no. Roma locuta, causa finita.

Ok, the Fundamento is the "supreme court", so it settled: kra-jo-no.

The Fundamento is more like the sum of native speakers. In other languages you would ask some of them what they think is right, in Esperanto everyone can consult a book with the same purpose. Usually however it is sufficient to take a good grammar (like PMEG) and dictionary (like PIV: vortaro.net), as they are written according to the Fundamento.

aausernameaa:There must be only one way to say it, the other is wrong, I think. You cant just say both are right.

I'll have to disagree with this statement. Plenty languages have multiple acceptable pronunciations for the same word. And within certain limits, Esperanto has multiple accepted pronunciations for its letters too. Regardless of the theory (which seems to be in favor of kra-jo-no, judging by Kirilo81's post), in my opinion kraj-o-no is definitely an acceptable variation in practice. As long as you don't put a glottal stop in between or something like that.

(The glottal stop is when you stop the air flow with your throat. In English it is for example found in the middle of "uh-oh!", and optionally at the start. Audio sample - Examples in other languages and dialects)

Rajzin:Regardless of the theory (which seems to be in favor of kra-jo-no, judging by Kirilo81's post), in my opinion kraj-o-no is definitely an acceptable variation in practice.

Sorry, but NO. The Fundamento exists just for the reason that the Esperanto speakers don't have to bother with personal opinions in every detail of the language ("...garantios al Esperanto tute certan vivon kaj uzatecon kaj plenan sendanĝerecon kontraŭ ĉiuj personaj kapricoj aŭ disputoj" ). As in other languages the L2 speakers can't establish a new norm against the L1 speakers, in Esperanto its speakers (also the denaskulo, BTW) can't establish a new norm - if not through an official decision of the Esperanto Academy to add a new rule to the Fundamento.
I know, the topic of this thread may be of marginal relevance, but where would you put the limit between "acceptable" breaches of the norm and not acceptable ones?

Kirilo81:... but where would you put the limit between "acceptable" breaches of the norm and not acceptable ones?

Readily understandable vs not readily understandable?

RiotNrrd:

Kirilo81:... but where would you put the limit between "acceptable" breaches of the norm and not acceptable ones?

Readily understandable vs not readily understandable?

"Understandability" so heavily depends from the linguocultural background of the speakers that it would lead to much confusion, doesn't this lie on the hand? (I'm quite curious whether this Germanisms is understandable)

Kirilo81:"Understandability" so heavily depends from the linguocultural background of the speakers that it would lead to much confusion, doesn't this lie on the hand? (I'm quite curious whether this Germanisms is understandable)

Well, sure, it does, and I suppose if I were speaking to a large, mixed international group, I would want to make sure my pronunciation was as precise as possible. But in smaller groups? With people I know? Or within an informal environment?

Generally, if I can understand someone, then I'm fine with how they are pronouncing things, even if it isn't canonical. Esperanto has so few vowels that it's pretty easy to figure out which one someone is shooting for even when they're nowhere near the target.

If I can't understand them, I generally just say that and ask them to either repeat or reword.

If my brain wasn't capable of wringing comprehension out of widely variant pronunciations, my job-life would be insane. I'm a senior engineer for a large software company, which, here in the USA, means that the majority of my co-workers native languages are *not* English. Chinese and Hindi feature prominently amongst the people I work with, and some of them pronounce some words nothing like a native speaker would. I have no problem understanding them (except here and there, now and then, when they'll throw me a real puzzler). And that's with English, which has I don't remember how many actual vowels to make things complicated.

While I think working towards the ability to precisely pronounce Esperanto words to an almost android-like perfection is an admirable goal, it isn't my primary goal, nor (do I think) is it of many students. Some people just want to have conversations with others without having to worry about whether their -aj combo is pronounced like ahj' or (English word) eye. You may say that cry-oh-no is entirely wrong and only craw-yo-no is the right way, but as long as people can understand cry-oh-no (they can) some will say it that way.

Many will, in fact, since I know that some of my learning materials insist that -aj is *always* pronounced (English word) eye. Perhaps not the Fundamento, it's true, but "Teach Yourself Esperanto" and other works like it are trusted and have a profound effect on how things get pronounced out in the real world.