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Hello; Noob in the house, ready your weapons!
Topic Started: Jun 13 2010, 09:00 AM (2,166 Views)
Hastine
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Universi enim hic sumus.
 *  *  *  *  *  *
I always pronounce Celtic as "kehl-tic"... Even the Boston Celtics, which gives me some odd looks. :P

And I'm pretty sure Byzantium (Or Byzantion) would have been pronounced like "Boo-zahn-tee-ohn" in Doric Greek (which is where the colonizers of Byzantium, the Megarans, came from), since the letter Ypsilon was pronounced like a French "U" sound and not like an "aye" or an "ee" like in English.

Ironically, all of these mispronounciations we have of Ancient Greek letters (Phi being pronounced like "F" instead of an aspirated P, Theta being pronounced like "The" instead of an aspirated T) are actually the same as their pronounciations in Modern Greek (i.e. Theos is pronounced "Thay-ohs", Philos is pronounced "Fee-lohs", and the letter "Ypsilon" itself is pronounced "Eep-see-lohn").

This sound change is also something that I was thinking of doing with Sperian (although I'm not sure yet), where the Latin masculine suffixes -us and -um become -u in Old Sperian and then become -i in Modern Sperian. Currently, my version of Modern Sperian just has a -u ending for most masculine words.
Edited by Hastine, Jun 24 2010, 03:18 PM.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Science and Industry
In matters of pronunciation its my policy to filter all foreign-origin words through a Midwestern English filter. I don't adopt a Spanish accent for pronouncing Spanish place-names, for example, like some people do.

I say Keltic for everything except the Boston Seltics and Seltic FC. My pronunciations are in line with the Noah Webster pronunciations. Looking up foreign enunciations for daily use is a wild goose chase imo and should be restricted to scholarly inquiries only.
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Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

Hesperia
Jun 24 2010, 03:16 PM
And I'm pretty sure Byzantium (Or Byzantion) would have been pronounced like "Boo-zahn-tee-ohn" in Doric Greek (which is where the colonizers of Byzantium, the Megarans, came from), since the letter Ypsilon was pronounced like a French "U" sound and not like an "aye" or an "ee" like in English.

Ironically, all of these mispronounciations we have of Ancient Greek letters (Phi being pronounced like "F" instead of an aspirated P, Theta being pronounced like "The" instead of an aspirated T) are actually the same as their pronounciations in Modern Greek (i.e. Theos is pronounced "Thay-ohs", Philos is pronounced "Fee-lohs", and the letter "Ypsilon" itself is pronounced "Eep-see-lohn").
Yeah, you are basically right about the ancient pronunciation, though I think there are some questions or variations regarding how precisely the zeta would be pronounced.

Regarding the mispronunciations, there are a few factors there. One is that some of the sound shifts occurred very early on and were present even in the Koine Greek, and since for a lot of history that was the most important dialect of ancient Greek (since the New Testament was written in it), those pronunciations would be taken as normative. The other is that I think there was some Byzantine influence on the Renaissance and subsequent study of Ancient Greek, so certain modernizations were incorporated into the Ancient Greek pronunciations that became common in the West. But when Ancient Greek is taught in English universities (I don't know about other languages), the most important concern was that each letter have a distinct, pronouncable sound. Since the aspirates are not distinguished in English, they make instruction to English speaking students difficult, so the more modern pronunciation is preferred in those cases.
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Sedulius
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Field Marshal
Hesperia
Jun 24 2010, 03:16 PM
I always pronounce Celtic as "kehl-tic"... Even the Boston Celtics, which gives me some odd looks. :P

And I'm pretty sure Byzantium (Or Byzantion) would have been pronounced like "Boo-zahn-tee-ohn" in Doric Greek (which is where the colonizers of Byzantium, the Megarans, came from), since the letter Ypsilon was pronounced like a French "U" sound and not like an "aye" or an "ee" like in English.

Ironically, all of these mispronounciations we have of Ancient Greek letters (Phi being pronounced like "F" instead of an aspirated P, Theta being pronounced like "The" instead of an aspirated T) are actually the same as their pronounciations in Modern Greek (i.e. Theos is pronounced "Thay-ohs", Philos is pronounced "Fee-lohs", and the letter "Ypsilon" itself is pronounced "Eep-see-lohn").

This sound change is also something that I was thinking of doing with Sperian (although I'm not sure yet), where the Latin masculine suffixes -us and -um become -u in Old Sperian and then become -i in Modern Sperian. Currently, my version of Modern Sperian just has a -u ending for most masculine words.
Also consider that in Cyrillic, closely related to Greek, the "Y" character makes an oo sound. So really that makes a lot of sense. Thank you Hesperia.

RD, I know that the pronunciation of Celt as Selt is accepted by most current linguists, but I'm just saying it shouldn't be. The only reason it is is because people say it so much, and if we go that route, there are going to be a lot of new words in the coming years (and sadly this is how it has been, because foolish modern linguists are putting any incorrect word or definition in the dictionary these days).
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Rhadamanthus
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Legitimist

Sed, my point was not that it is accepted by use, but rather that the "Selt" pronunciation of "Celt" is an Anglicization of a foreign term, analogous to the standard English pronunciations of "Caesar" or "Cerberus" - both of which had "K" sounds at the front of them in the original languages but generally use "S" in English. I don't see why, in the case of a loanword that has been absorbed into English use, it should retain the characteristics of foreign pronunciation.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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The Devil's Advocate

Hesperia
Jun 24 2010, 03:16 PM
Ironically, all of these mispronounciations we have of Ancient Greek letters (Phi being pronounced like "F" instead of an aspirated P, Theta being pronounced like "The" instead of an aspirated T) are actually the same as their pronounciations in Modern Greek (i.e. Theos is pronounced "Thay-ohs", Philos is pronounced "Fee-lohs", and the letter "Ypsilon" itself is pronounced "Eep-see-lohn").
Celts being no exception.

And that's why we have Selts. It's an Anglo-French pronunciation of the Greek ("Ce" as RD has adequately addressed) as a rejection of Latinate hard "C".

Kelt is correct. Selt is not wrong.

Byzantium is a Latinisation of the Greek. The correct Greek is "Booz" (with RD's caveat on zeta). The correct Latin is "Bye-ZAN". The English "Biz" is closer to "Booz" than "Bye-ZAN". Make of that what you will. I just call it Genesis. Or Ist-aaan-bulllll!
Edited by Nag Ehgoeg, Jun 24 2010, 03:42 PM.
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Telosan
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The Foremost Intellectual Badass
I've always said "biz-an-teen" and "keltic". Which is pretty unusual for me, since most of my vocabulary comes from books so I tend to pronounce things the way I read them. I still find myself saying "politican" instead of "politician" all the time.
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Deleted User
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Looks like Leselier is gone.
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Porcu
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"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."

:lol:

And all I said was "Hello".
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Deleted User
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Porcu
Jul 13 2010, 06:39 PM
:lol:

And all I said was "Hello".
:lol: Maybe that's what did it.

It was bound to happen sooner or later though.
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