confusion about い in なんでい


This is a sentence from a manga (the first chapter of _Slam Dunk_ on page 9)

["バスケット部がなんでいバスケット部が!"] seems like it translates to something like "basketball
team... why the basketball team!?"...

There is a line break between the なんでい/なんだい and the repetition of the subject
(バスケット部が)

...but I'm not sure why なんで is being spelled with い at the end. does that
change the sentence structure as a whole to make it mean something else?




> ["バスケット部がなんでいバスケット部が!"]

なんでい is the masculine form of なんだい,なんなの,なにさ, etc as explained in the comment.
It seems to be a variant of the Edo dialect べらんめえ口調.

Without the context, the meaning is hard to figure out. Probably the phrase is
used in a condescending manner.

The speaker probably does not like the basketball club, so they uttered the
sentence in that way. Is it a situation where they are recruiting someone to
the club?

I'd assume the speaker's saying it is just a
"[Tamaire](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%89%E5%85%A5%E3%82%8C)".

> _**Basketball club? So what? It's just a basketball club！**_




> ["バスケット部がなんでいバスケット部が!"]

なんでい is the masculine form of なんだい,なんなの,なにさ, etc as explained in the comment.
It seems to be a variant of the Edo dialect べらんめえ口調.

Without the context, the meaning is hard to figure out. Probably the phrase is
used in a condescending manner.

The speaker probably does not like the basketball club, so they uttered the
sentence in that way. Is it a situation where they are recruiting someone to
the club?

I'd assume the speaker's saying it is just a
"[Tamaire](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%89%E5%85%A5%E3%82%8C)".

> _**Basketball club? So what? It's just a basketball club！**_

