Latin question: dipthong "ae"

Post #16,387 by admin 11/3/01 7:21:16 PM 11/3/01 8:22:10 PM Reply	Latin question: dipthong "ae" Does it rhyme with "sky" or "say"? Regards, -scott anderson Edited by admin Nov. 3, 2001, 08:22:10 PM EST Expand All History
Post #16,396 by admin 11/3/01 9:31:54 PM Reply	Answering my own question Rhymes with "sky". Alumni is pronounced "uh-lum-nee" and alumnae is pronounced "uh-lum-nye". :-) Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,397 by Ashton 11/3/01 10:08:51 PM Reply	OK.. but what about the \ufffdgean Sea? Mine dict. says a long-e (- on top) as accords with how I've always heard it pronounced. Maybe different at start of a word, just to really screw up furriners (?)
Post #16,400 by admin 11/3/01 10:35:42 PM Reply	Merriam-Webster online says: i-'jE-&n Etymology: Latin Aegaeus, from Greek Aigaios www.dictionary.com says the same thing but with a breve mark over the i, making it "ih-je-uhn". Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,402 by Ashton 11/3/01 11:00:05 PM Reply	Hmm - they differ. But I suspect that the opening is indeed elided mostly, like that initial "i" - making it moot. If I think of it, will look in the giant 15# '30s one sometime, and see what changes they noted. Minor stuff of course. (There are some Danish words which Merkins can pronounce only by putting hand over mouth, since we don't use our throats the same way!) A.
Post #16,449 by admin 11/4/01 9:58:56 AM Reply	Keep in mind: Words in English dictionaries are English words with English pronunciations. :-) At least, that's my wife's theory. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,522 by CRConrad 11/4/01 9:06:13 PM Reply	In that case... Phuck knows. But that wasn't what you asked.
Post #16,524 by admin 11/4/01 9:43:23 PM Reply	I know that. I'm saying, you can't depend on an English dictionary to give you Latin pronunciations. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,521 by CRConrad 11/4/01 9:04:32 PM Reply	But that's different: It's not originally Latin, but Greek.
Post #16,404 by gdaustin 11/3/01 11:07:50 PM Reply	So daemon is? d i (long) mon? like diamond, instead of like Matt Damon? (long a)?
Post #16,406 by boxley 11/3/01 11:16:49 PM Reply	daemon is demon unix spelling tshirt front "born to die before I get old" thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
Post #16,520 by CRConrad 11/4/01 9:04:06 PM Reply	Neither; it sounds like a German (& Scandinavian) a-umlaut.
Post #16,525 by admin 11/4/01 9:44:26 PM Reply	Er, no. 'ae' in Latin sounds like a long 'i'. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,551 by CRConrad 11/5/01 3:00:16 AM Reply	ObOb: "That depends..." Scott the first: 'ae' in Latin sounds like a long 'i'. ...in this case, that depends on what you mean by "like a long 'i'." Not as the letter 'i' is pronounced in any sensible language, no. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #16,570 by admin 11/5/01 9:06:13 AM Reply	Re: ObOb: "That depends..." Long 'i' as rhymes with 'sky', 'pie', 'rye', 'my', etc. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,580 by CRConrad 11/5/01 10:08:45 AM Reply	Yup - Q. E. (that's two fscking sounds!) D...
Post #16,582 by admin 11/5/01 10:10:42 AM Reply	Not in my language it isn't. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,586 by CRConrad 11/5/01 10:22:16 AM Reply	You one of them thar Southerners...? ...Or whatever group it is that (are supposed to) say "Mah Aah, the Skah is looking maahty faahn today"? First I'd heard of it, if that's so... You might not have noticed it yourself, but if you speaka da Engrish like the overwhelming majority of Engrish-speakahs do, then the vowelly sound in "my", "eye", and "sky" is a diphtong (not a dip-thong, BTW :-) -- 'di-' as in 'two', 'coz it's two vowels where the first sort of glides over into the second. No wonder you're handicapped, though: Only Engrish is so weird as to regularly spell diphtongs with a single letter, and single vowel sounds with two letters. (Contrast 'mine' -- 'mean', 'line' -- 'lean', etc.) Not even French is quite as fucked-up, AFAICS. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #16,590 by admin 11/5/01 10:31:33 AM Reply	No. And regardless of whether it's pronounced as one vowel or a diphtong, all of the words I listed use the same "i" sound. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,591 by CRConrad 11/5/01 10:38:15 AM Reply	s/sound/sounds/ When you're talking about pronounciation, it's stupid to call a diphtong "_A_ sound", or to use the single letter 'i' to spell it, thass'all I'm saying. 'Coz it's TWO _sounds_; that's what makes it a di-phtong. Absent a fhunetikl alfabett with upside-down e's and stuff, better use "Eye", or two thirds of it, or something. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #16,594 by admin 11/5/01 10:58:29 AM Reply	Whatever. Sometimes you are too pedantic for words, Christian. :-) Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,669 by Ashton 11/5/01 4:29:27 PM Reply	Was that a dipth-pun? Dunno what sorta mumblers you hang out with, Scott - but NoOne I've ever heard (who's been anywhere near that Sea) would pronounce, \ufffdgean "Eye-gee-an".. ih-gean' far more likely, as the ac-cent' is on the second syl-lab'-le in any event. Less'n you calls them Italians 'Eye-T's' too (?) or maybe 'Eye-raq' like our Presyudent n'stuff. {s-ighh'} YAN punctilious proselytizer puncturing Popinjay persiflage, pal.
Post #16,671 by admin 11/5/01 4:37:13 PM Reply	Er, that's kinda my point, Asthon. The LATIN pronunciation of "ae" is the same as how English speakers say "sky" or "mine". The ENGLISH pronuciation of "Aegean" is, as the dictionaries said, "ih", not "eye". My point to you being that you can't necessarily use an English dictionary to get the Latin pronunciation of a diphthong. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,681 by Ashton 11/5/01 4:50:12 PM Reply	Well.. not so sure Where is the need for changing (when speakin Engrish) the Actual Name-sound of a place - just for the &%#^$# arbitrariness of that-all? Like.. Vallejo, Santa Clara, Mexico ...* Except sloth? The Actual Name-sound is never a wrong sound! Haven't 'we' better things to do than to teach Bowdlerized replacements - to assure being snickered-at, by anyone who ever left Passaic? (Say even.. one o' them I-Wrack-EEs who might visit and not recognize her own country being 'named') Never mind. I guess I need more ed-dja-Kay'-shun, so I can run for orifice someday.
Post #16,738 by admin 11/5/01 7:47:42 PM Reply	I dont' particularly care for it either. Just making my point. Hell, I live about 5 miles from a place called "Lake Orion", pronounced "OR-ee-un". Drives me nuts. Regards, -scott anderson
Post #16,741 by Ashton 11/5/01 8:36:12 PM Reply	Heh.. wait'll ya hear 'Cholmondeley' said in Murican (Of course the Mother country has lots o' these chestnuts, startin with Worcestershire) It's 'Chumley' !! ..it's a losin' battle hereabouts, nowadays - even without hAxoR :[
Post #16,622 by tseliot 11/5/01 1:19:03 PM Reply	It is Greek in origin See my [link\|http://promo.net/pg/vol/greek.html\|Greek primer] at Gutenberg. "ae" is representative of the Greek letter eta. Pronunciation is up for grabs--tending to be polarized around famous dead-language professors in different parts of the world, mostly the U.S., Germany and England. I use the long-a sound, as in "day". --------------------------------- A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas;...despair and time eat away the bonds of iron and steel, but they are powerless against the habitual union of ideas, they can only tighten it still more; and on the soft fibres of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the soundest of Empires." Jacques Servan, 1767
Post #16,685 by Silverlock 11/5/01 4:56:28 PM Reply	Rhymes with I Like in Iwethey (which we should change to Pedants-R-Us). Or not. For both the pronounciation and the name change. :-) Don Richards, Proud recipient of the ABBA.
Post #16,742 by Ashton 11/5/01 8:37:15 PM Reply	Hey! .. we don't fool around with kids!
Post #17,190 by GBert 11/7/01 3:36:55 PM Reply	Re: Latin question: dipthong "ae" What I learned in school was that Latin pronunciation differs depending on what Latin you're speeking-- classical "ae" was more like "eye", late and medieval more like "hay" -- and I'm sure there were important regional variations in all eras (I remember reading about graffiti in Pompei mentioning a "venus bombeiana" -- so 'P' was likely pronounced "B" in Naples back then too -- it's fun to imagine Latin spoken with a neapolitan accent). Other important changes in pronunciation occured between classical and late empire Latin, like "v" changing from "w" to "v", "c" changing from always hard to sometimes soft like "ch". Vedi vidi vici: "whenny weedy weaky" or "venny veedy veetchy"? Caesar: "Kaiser" or "chessar"? We (in Italy) were taught to use the late empire/medieval italian pronunciation but several people I know who took Latin in England and US were taught a more classical pronunciation. Giovanni

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