it's a CVCVC word that most people can pronounce and the primary author likes for whatever reason. it's completely fine.
I'm not implying there is anything nefarious about it.
fwiw, the concern you're thinking of tends to be sidestepped either by a pseudo-initialism or a vowel shift in actual practice. In this case, the first options / paths of least resistance in an arabic-speaking community would seemingly be:
- to raise the first vowel to more of an [ɪə]¹ or
- to pronounce the /kəf/ - /kɑf/ then "IR" as single letters.
¹ which afaik would turn it into a long vowel that might act like a geminate? dunno
I'm from the US, Kefir is healthy fermented yogurt-like drink that is in every grocery store pronounced "kee-fur".
Does it mean something else in another language?
Pretty unfortunate. Take a look here at a pronunciation in English more closely resembling the original Caucasian / Slavic: https://www.lexico.com/definition/kefir (/kəˈfɪə/ in IPA). There's audio in the link, which should hopefully clear up confusion.
This is also the common way I've heard it pronounced in the UK, where the product appears on most major grocery store shelves.
As a relatively unenlighted person on the topic of nasty slurs, I apprechiate the tipoff that using the name of a cultured milk drink sounds uncultured. Although, I tend to name things with overworked puns, so there's that.
Maybe people don’t spoon feed you explanations because you’re rude even to the people who try to explain.
As an actual Hindu who has lived in a Muslim majority Middle Eastern country, I'm not the tiniest bit offended, because a fermented yogurt drink happens to have a somewhat similar name as an insult based on religious bigotry..