Why is "man" pronounced like "Mann"?

Question

I have listened to multiple sound samples and "man" sounds to me like "Mann". Is there a difference? For example, in "Schwan", "Kran", "Plan", "Vulkan", "Untertan", "Tukan", "Roman", the a is long.

Even "LAN" has a long a.

Why is it not pronounced long then?

Answer 1

Because it was originally the same word as "Mann", which is itself short. There are a few pairs of words in German that are pronounced the same but written differently without any historical reason, just to not look the same. For example, there is "dass" (that) deriving from "das" (that) or "seid" (y'all are) and "seit" (since) which etymologically should both be spelled "seit".

The Germanic word was originally used to refer to all humans, regardless of sex. As the meaning of the pronoun "man" (no gender indication) diverged from the meaning of the noun "Mann" (male), it was also useful to spell it another way.

There is actually no hard rule the determines if a single vowel followed by a single consonant is long or short: "an", "ran", "heran" are also short. As you see, functional words often don't have double consonants despite having short vowels, and "man" is definitely such a functional word.

Answer 2

The rule you found, is indeed a general rule for pronunciation of German words:

• If after a vowel there is only one consonant in the same syllable, or no consonant at all, then the vowel is pronounced long.

  mal, total, egal, normal, ...

• If within the same syllable there are two ore more consonants after a vowel, then the vowel is pronounces short.

  Fall, Ball, Stall, Metall, alt, kalt, hart, ...

But there are many exceptions, sometimes even if the spelling is identical (except for capitalization):

short: Ich gehe weg.
long: Ich gehe den Weg entlang.

There are many reasons for these exceptions. These are the main reasons:

1. German has a lot of loanwords and foreign words that are not original German. But the rule with the number of consonants only applies to originally German words.
2. German is a living language and spelling and pronunciation changed during the centuries.

In case of »man« and »Mann« it is the second reasons: These words both derive from the same etymological root from which also English »man« derives and similar words in many other Germanic languages. It meant »human« (without meaning a certain gender), »Mankind«, »male human« or »husband«. But it also meant »someone«. And in the meaning »someone« it evolved to the modern word »man« while in the meaning »male human«, »husband« it turned into »Mann«, but the pronunciation of both forms always keept the same.