Anyway

Good Friends

Even American English – as contrast to British English – cannot escape exceptions. I don’t suppose Americans pronounce ‘idiot’ sounding eyediot , do they?
However having watched this really sweet video of 2 very good and best friends has made me realize the following:

Although the word Eyeran does not sound nice to Iranian ears, it seems to sound more natural to non Persian speaking Americans.
An example would be ‘Irland’.
Iranians change the pronunciation of this word to ‘eerland’, which is the French pronunciation. Of course French language used to be the main European language taught in the schools of Iran until after the WWII. However Iranians (in Iran) still accept new European words - mainly technical words – into the Persian language in their French pronunciation only, not really due to their loyalty to French, but because the pronunciation is more acceptable for the Iranian ears.

On the other hand ‘eeron’ could indeed sound very wrong to American English speakers. Perhaps because of the prefix ‘ir’ that changes the meaning of a word to ‘not’, ‘non’ and ‘un’? But then the prefix ‘in’ has the same function.
But the difference is that ‘in’ also has a positive meaning when used by itself. So ‘ir’ has a negative connotation?
What is more interesting for me is that the loving friend says the word ‘psycho’.
It makes me wonder if she has any German ancestors. It doesn’t matter if she consciously speaks German or not. I mean genetic memory.
Irre (pronounced eere) in German means ‘deranged’ and Irrenhaus means lunatic asylum.

I hope this comment would help irate Iranians in USA to avoid irksome arguments with their neighbours. Alternatively look for a new spelling that fits better with Americanism in order to make the right pronunciation more acceptable with time.
Besides we still need a lot of running and it is of no use to say ‘I ran’ as if it was already over and done with. Why not change it to ‘I run’ or even better ‘We run’?
Well, pure chance that it sounds like another Persian word. But how far is chance a chance?

Emreeka!

Very good point AnonymousMM.

AAMREECAA :)

It's like an American getting all frustrated cause Iranians call America "Aamreecaa".

Get over it. Most Americans are comfortable with "Eye-ran" or "Ee-ran". But "Eeraan"...? No.

Eyeran

When a word begins with an "i" followed by a consonant and a vowel, the "i" is most often pronounced as "eye":

Ice = Eyece
Icon = Eyecon
Ideal = Eyedeal
Identify = Eyedentity
Identity = Eyedentity
Ideology = Eyedeology
Idol = Eyedol
Iron = Eyeron
Isolate = Eyesolate
Item = Eyetem
Ivory = Eyevory

When a word begins with an "i" followed by two consecutive consonants, the "i" is most often pronounced as "ee":

Ignite = eegnite

In most words begining with "ill", "in", "inn", "im", "imm", and "irr", the "i" is pronounced as "ee":

Illigal = eelligal
Immaculate = eemmaculate
Inside = eenside

There are many exceptions to these and many other pronounciation rules, but exceptional pronounciation rules are not usually adhered to by the masses.

Iran

yep it is Iran and god bless you azizam for correcting people....

I agree

A friend always knows best. SHe is Psycho, No doubt.