People are claiming that Illinois is pronounced ill-eye-neigh, not ill-annoy... But it sounds like ill-annoy when an American says it. Do you, the American English speakers, perhaps flatten "eye" to "ah" so it sounds like ill-ah-neigh? And don't you also tend to lift "o" up to "ah" too, so that "height" and "hot" become almost indistinguishable when you say them mid-sentence? Because that would explain why my European ears are hearing ill-annoy.
@thor I have never heard any pronunciation other than ill-annoy. And I lived 3 months in Indianapolis.
@thor It's pronounced "ill-ah-noy" plain and simple. NO ONE says "ill-eye-neigh".
@thor I'm in California. My understanding is that the preferred pronunciation is ill-annoy. This is backed up by previous replies and Wikipedia ( IL-ih-NOY ). I've not heard any other pronunciation other than the incorrect and likely offensive to locals, ill-inoise.
The US has several dialects that might make it harder to pin down the perfect pronunciation when listening to each of us say it.
@thor Missouri, on the other hand is often pronounced either "mis-or-ee" or "mis-or-ah", and I think both are acceptable.
Also Nevada is nev-ad-uh and not the often mispronounced nev-ah-duh.
@thor i believe illini is the actual native American thing- the university of Illinois mascot is the illini (... ahem)