Comment by littlekey

4 hours ago

Surely "naan" would have been a way better transliteration choice than "non", right?

I got a job at the local Uzbek restaurant, but before I could learn all the recipes and secret ingredients, I had to sign a naan disclosure agreement.

1. English transliteration has its own cultural inertia. It's not just about what's most phonetically sensible (that too only for some particular English region: how an American phonetizes non would be different from how a Brit or Aussie would).

2. Don't assume the Uzbeks say this word the same way as the Indians do. It may very well sound closer to "non" in Uzbekistan.

Probbly a deliberate choice to distinguish it from its Indian sibling?