Long Final Syllables

Technology-related documents in Japan now tend to delete the macron symbol from words when it appears at the end of the words. E.g., ベンダ instead of ベンダー (vendor), ユーザ instead of ユーザー (user) and アーキテクチャ instead of アーキテクチャー (architecture). While this may only be a change in notation, I sense it partly reflects change in actual pronunciation.

The standard pronunciation of ベンダー is bendā and that of ユーザー, yūzā (where the bold parts indicate accent). Anglo-Japanese words were initially pronounced with stress as the original English words. These pronunciations are still valid in general parlance but becoming obsolete in sectors of the society where they are encountered everyday like bread and butter. Pronunciations that are "in" typically shorten the final vowel and remove stress; thus benda and yūza. Whether it reflects the actual pronunciation or is being reflected there, the notation without a final macron is on the increase. As the law of opposition dictates, bendā and yūzā are now seen as a sign of the uninitiated.

I wonder if shortening of the final long vowel and loss of the accent are related phenomena. Or more accurately, long vowels in Anglo-Japanese may represent relative weakness/lowness of articulation. This is supported by アーキテクチャ, which preserves the accent on テ despite the loss of the final macron and ユーザ, where the second syllable is pronounced with a higher pitch compared to the first long syllable.