Pronunciation of "banal" in British English?

How is "banal" properly pronounced in British English?

I know three ways to pronunciate banal but I don't know how to write them here.


I'm a Brit and I say b'narl. Not rhyming with canal (short 'a's), nor banorl (all), and definitely never rhyming with anal.

Unfortunately I've no sound on my machine at the moment so I can't listen to Ledda's links.

How does this site pronounce it?


After looking in a lot of dictionaries, there definitely seems to be a lot of disagreement in the pronunciation, or at least a lot of variation.

/bəˈnæl, -ˈnɑl, ˈbeɪnl/ seem to be the three I keep seeing.

That is, the first will rhyme with canal, the second with darl, and the last with anal.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/banal

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/banal

http://dict.leo.org/#/search=banal&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on

I think the most interesting here is the pronunciation on Leo, which is clearly said by a native Brit. It's also the closest to the German pronunciation, although I believe the etymology is French, in which case it is pronounced almost the same.


This link has sound recordings of both American and English pronunciations of banal http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/banal?q=banal#