Why is the pronunciation of 'danger' and 'anger' so different?

I believe danger and anger are so different because they have a very different etymology. * Words like danger – as well as ranger, stranger etc. read more

So at least from the frequency of occurrences, it would appear that the pronunciation of danger is the rule and anger the exception. read more

Both the first consonant and the vowel are different. The words are pronounced something like [pʰʊt] and [bʌt] in British English, and [pʰʊʔ] and [bəʔ] in American English. The difference between the initial consonant is primarily one of aspiration. read more

All these words have different histories, and the fact that they use some of the same letters in English is irrelevant. The history is the history of their pronunciation. Then somebody wrote each of them down -- at a different time for each one. read more