Do YOU pronounce Sigil with a hard or soft G?

[Saint-Just]

My go-to segue to any discussion of different origins of English words is Paul Anderson's Uncleftish Beholding. It's a text written in a (not very serious) attempted (re)construction of purely Germanic version of English language. Most of the terms are in fact morpheme-to-morpheme equivalent to the non-Germainic words in the current usage (so "atom"-> a+tomos ~ un+cleave -> "uncleft"). I find it interesting that some people report significant difference in understanding the text and some say it reads almost effortlessly.

[Eldan]

Oh, people go further than that. Uncleftish Beholding is just a start. There's an entire Anglish conlang now, including a Wiki. It has all the usual science categories one would expect, Worldken, Heavenlore, Gleecraft, Blendlore, Shapelore, Reckonlore, Lifelore... and all Eretide from the Romish Rich to the twithe World Wye. (Spoiler: Theechland lost.)

[Tanarii]

I find it interesting that some people report significant difference in understanding the text and some say it reads almost effortlessly.

That's pretty amazing given so many unenglish words being used to make up the compound words.

[Eldan]

You know, Weeneitherbit may be my new favourite word. (Neutrino).

[ImNotTrevor]

That's pretty amazing given so many unenglish words being used to make up the compound words.

I haven't seen any words in the text not found in English. So I'm not sure what you're on about.

Then again, I'm not sure what you're on about in a lot of this thread.

[Saint-Just]

I haven't seen any words in the text not found in English. So I'm not sure what you're on about.

Then again, I'm not sure what you're on about in a lot of this thread.

There are some words which are uncommon (manifold, lading) in the everyday usage in the last 50+ years; and also others which are used in ways they haven't been used for very long ("standing" for state, "tale" for amount, even "ken" for knowledge - beyond one's ken is a set phrase, you can understand it without knowing what ken is)

[quinron]

What little it's worth, as a British person with a fairly generic "polite" accent, I say SCUBA as "sk-you-buh", with a schwa at the end and the "sk-you" as in the UK pronunciation of skew, dew and duke.

(I also say "apparatus" with three different A sounds, as in cat, schwa and case, but that's neither here nor there.)

As a Midwestern American who's fascinated by accents, I think the u-glide is probably the thing Americans miss most often when they're faking a British accent (if it's a halfway decent one; the most missed thing in bad accents is the non-rhotic endings).

That, and Americans pronounce all the French-derived words with French rules ("herb" and "garage" are the most obvious).

[dps]

To be honest, I don't think that I've ever said "sigil" out loud, but if I did, I'd pronounce it with a hard g.

[Caelestion]

That, and Americans pronounce all the French-derived words with French rules ("herb" and "garage" are the most obvious).

I was always a bit baffled by Americans saying "erb" rather than "herb", particularly when they often like to criticise us for not shedding all the silent letters in other words, such as oestrogen and colour. (Not that the O in "oestrogen" is silent, as it instructs you to sound the initial E as a long E (ee-), but again, that's neither here nor there.)

[Vinyadan]

I think the right answer is "Seagull".

There's a few interesting things here. One is that sigil is a strict relative of seal. Seal comes from Old French (seel < Lat. sigillum), while sigil comes directly from Latin sigillum. German Siegel also comes from Latin. German in general tends to harden -g- (see: Genua and Papageno, which is supposed to be an Italian name). So it could have got the word from Latin back when it was still pronounced with the hard g, or as it was already pronounced with a soft j in the rest of Europe and rehardened it, because that's how people there read their Latin.

In general, many of the uncertain pronunciations I have seen in this thread are of English words loaned from French (or Spanish). So there seems to be two competing pronunciations, one according to French, the other one according to more or less local English rules. The funny part is that this same thing is playing out abroad, as knowledge of English takes over French, with people e.g. accepting both pronunciations for "stage".

Another thing is that derivation isn't enough to always make a word be pronounced in a certain way. Clear and clarify are a good example. The words are related, but have different histories, one coming from French, the other from Latin. More in general, the position of the accent or whether a syllable is open or closed and a few other things can influence pronunciation even in related words, like simultaneous and simulate, or probate and probable (in this case, the -a- actually belongs to different suffixes). In Latin this was very strong, it's why you have both captive and receptive.

About what is hard and what is soft... these are actually shorthand definitions that only make sense if you already know what the hard and soft variants are. Under normal conditions, you would talk about occlusive (gallon - the g completely stops the airflow), affricate (John - the J stops the airflow as a d succeeded by a sound (zh?) in which the airflow is allowed to get through) and fricative (shop - the sh modifies the airflow, but never stops it), with a few more attributes to determine what sound you mean.

For bonus points: try Toolmake, Bagehot, Talliafero, Buccleugh, Cholmondeley or Wriothesley

Are they all smith's names? Toolmake and Talliaferro (Iron Cutter) make me wonder. Delevingne is also an interesting name, literally "from the vineyard" with an archaic writing that has been superseded in French (la vigne).

To be fair, I would also love a cooler coat of arms than mine.

Be careful of what you wish for, or you will end up like Beatrice of York, who got three bees -- because it's bee-thrice! Which is even worse than Saturn's Tech-Nick!

pronouncing Caesar as "seizer"

Nomen (=name) omen...

By the way, if I started writing Wednesday as Wensday, would the pronunciation actually change?

Also, sa or za?

[ImNotTrevor]

There are some words which are uncommon (manifold, lading) in the everyday usage in the last 50+ years; and also others which are used in ways they haven't been used for very long ("standing" for state, "tale" for amount, even "ken" for knowledge - beyond one's ken is a set phrase, you can understand it without knowing what ken is)

I need to not respond at 1 am. Ignore my initial response, I'd lost the through line.

Yeah, I picked up on that. It is still one hell of a reach to say "there is non-english wordage in here."

You can tell there was no checking before that declaration. Which explains a lot about how things have been going.

[Luccan]

I think the right answer is "Seagull".

I was going to joke about this, but here you went and provided an actual explanation.

[Eldan]

Be careful of what you wish for, or you will end up like Beatrice of York, who got three bees -- because it's bee-thrice! Which is even worse than Saturn's Tech-Nick!

Look, my family's coat of arms is a green hill on a blue sky. It's the most boring crest I've ever seen. It's literally just half blue, half green with a bit of a curve in the dividing line. I'd say I take a bad pun for a family crest, but a hill is already the literal translation of my name.

There's like 50 other families with my name and their own coat of arms and every other one of them came up with something more interesting. Even those that have the hill have at least something on top of the hill.

[Lord Torath]

Look, my family's coat of arms is a green hill on a blue sky. It's the most boring crest I've ever seen. It's literally just half blue, half green with a bit of a curve in the dividing line. I'd say I take a bad pun for a family crest, but a hill is already the literal translation of my name.

Is this a good time to quote Ferris Bueller (the TV version)?

"It is a piece of tin. Don't worry about it, I don't even have my own piece of tin. I have to envy yours."

No family coat of arms (that I'm aware of) for me.

[quinron]

I was always a bit baffled by Americans saying "erb" rather than "herb", particularly when they often like to criticise us for not shedding all the silent letters in other words, such as oestrogen and colour. (Not that the O in "oestrogen" is silent, as it instructs you to sound the initial E as a long E (ee-), but again, that's neither here nor there.)

That's actually an interesting example - we pronounce "estrogen" with a short E anyway. I've noticed that vowel-shortening seems to be common from most British accents to SAE; for example, I've heard a lot of Brits pronounce "minotaur" as [MY-no-tor] instead of [MIN-o-tar], which seems to be most common pronunciation here in the States.

[Caelestion]

Well, yes, as in King Minos (My-noss). I've never been to Crete, so I don't know how modern Greeks pronounce it, but then I wouldn't expect them to pronounce things the way their ancestors did 2500 years ago anyway.

I suspect (completely without proof) that Webster's spelling reforms are partially to blame for the different pronunciations of Classical roots across the pond. Words such as paedophile and oestrogen sound completely different in the US, but I don't know whether it was spelling following pronunciation or the reverse.

[Eldan]

Well, yes, as in King Minos (My-noss). I've never been to Crete, so I don't know how modern Greeks pronounce it, but then I wouldn't expect them to pronounce things the way their ancestors did 2500 years ago anyway.

I suspect (completely without proof) that Webster's spelling reforms are partially to blame for the different pronunciations of Classical roots across the pond. Words such as paedophile and oestrogen sound completely different in the US, but I don't know whether it was spelling following pronunciation or the reverse.

Μίνως is pronounced like the English pronoun "me". Mee-noss. Iota is [i] in both Ancient and Modern Greek. Hence Μινώταυρος is [miːnɔ̌ːtau̯ros], or Mee-no-t-ow-ross. Ow as in "how".

Second part is interesting. I don't actually know when English lost the sounds "ae" and "oe", given that both Latin, German and French all have those sounds.

[Caelestion]

Well, British English hasn't lost them, in as much as the Greek diphthongs ai and oi were Latinised as ae and oe, which themselves slid towards ee, just as they have done in Modern Greek (a process known as iotacism). The differences between "modern" Ecclesiastical Latin and what we think Classical Latin (e.g. that of Caesar or Cicero) sounded like are quite different.

[quinron]

Μίνως is pronounced like the English pronoun "me". Mee-noss. Iota is [i] in both Ancient and Modern Greek. Hence Μινώταυρος is [miːnɔ̌ːtau̯ros], or Mee-no-t-ow-ross. Ow as in "how".

The "au" to [ɔ] phenomenon interests me because it's common to both British and American accents - neither is likely to, for example, pronounce the end of "minotaur" as [taʊr]. I'm 90% certain it comes from French, because "au" in pretty much every other Romantic and Germanic language is [aʊ], which makes it very funny to me seeing how British dialects have otherwise really rejected French influence.

[Caelestion]

If you go to Crete in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, you can hear the voice actors stumble over at least three different pronunciation of the famous Minotaur, whether that's British (my-no-tor), American (min-o-tar) or what I assumed was a Modern Greek effort. I don't recall hearing an approximation of the Classical Greek mee-no-towr (as in a version of Eldan's pronunciation), though.

[Vinyadan]

The "au" to [ɔ] phenomenon interests me because it's common to both British and American accents - neither is likely to, for example, pronounce the end of "minotaur" as [taʊr]. I'm 90% certain it comes from French, because "au" in pretty much every other Romantic and Germanic language is [aʊ], which makes it very funny to me seeing how British dialects have otherwise really rejected French influence.

I think that this is an interesting case, because some Latin speakers had already started to pronounce au as o back in the days of Cicero (a man called Claudius changed his name to Clodius because that's how the plebs pronounced it). Then you find later documents by grammarians explaining recurrent errors, like writing oricla instead of auris (=ear). Nowadays, you have ear = Fr. oreille, It. orecchia/o, Sp. Oreja, Port. Orelha, Rum. Ureche, all from oricla, all without au. However, in many of these languages the process is over, so nowadays you have many words where au hasn't been processed into o, be it because they were introduced later or they were cultured words whose pronunciation was particularly guarded.

[Tanarii]

Looking those Latin words up, it looks like they're supposed to be pronounced as follows?
Clah-oo-dee-uhs
Ah-oo-ris

[Beleriphon]

The one I see often is mispronouncing 'daemon' as 'demon'. Which is not without precedent, see encyclopaedia, so I'll switch to demon if corrected, but it's notably widespread (the word is technically 'day-mun' with a short u, at least in my accent).

If we're going old school daemon in Latin should be dymon (the ae is a diphthong and has the same sound as the y in sky).

Full disclosure, I pronounce GIF as "Gift". But I can see a case for pronouncing it like the peanut butter Jif, if only to avoid confusion with the word "gift". Especially early on in their development/utilization.

Now a days, if you're not using jpegs (pronounced gee-pigs, obviously) you're imaging wrong

I prefer pings personally. ;)

[ezekielraiden]

If we're going old school daemon in Latin should be dymon (the ae is a diphthong and has the same sound as the y in sky).

Indeed. And the original pronunciation is preserved in, for example, eudaimonia. (The term "daimon" could refer to one's "guardian spirit," and thus became metaphorically or euphemistically used as a term for one's "fate" or "destiny," and thus the word was used for "the state of having a good life; flourishing, excellence; contented happiness.")

[Beleriphon]

As a thought, some of the weird pronunciation we see in here coup de grace being pronounced coo day grah is a phenomenon known as hyperforeignism. It it happens a lot when we apply a language rule that doesn't apply but it looks like should because you don't speak the language that is being mistaken. For example habanero being pronounced with a ñ like jalepeño because it looks like it's Spanish (more specifically Mexican Spanish).

[Caelestion]

Looking those Latin words up, it looks like they're supposed to be pronounced as follows?
Clah-oo-dee-uhs
Ah-oo-ris

In Classical Latin, the au diphthong is pronounced as in town or cloud.

[Tanarii]

In Classical Latin, the au diphthong is pronounced as in town or cloud.

I checked a few more links and some do indeed say that. The ones I was looking at when I posted last time said it's two sounds, ah-oo. Different search terms for the win lol

Klow-dee-uhs certainly makes more sense.

[Xuc Xac]

I checked a few more links and some do indeed say that. The ones I was looking at when I posted last time said it's two sounds, ah-oo.

It is two sounds. That's the literal meaning of "diphthong". It's only one syllable though.

"Claudius" sounded like "cloudy juice" without the J.

[RedMage125]

I am greatly enjoying this.

I'm enjoying your towering condescension. Especially because you've been so caught up in overwhelming smugness that you're contradicting yourself, issuing mutually exclusive statements, and still acting like everyone who disagrees with you must be mentally defunct.

It is really amusing to me that 2 internet randos are trying to argue against an entire academic field of study and its findings in order to not be wrong.

Even down to when someone uses actual audio recordings to demonstrate the sound differences, they have to insist that *literally every English speaker on the planet except for them must be wrong* in one case.

Case in point. You support Xuc Xac and his statements, supporting the audio recordings as "only correct way", and yet, earlier...

Accents can affect the voicings of things, and are tied to dialects.
Accounting for multiple common pronunciations of a word and having them all be acceptable is literally the exact OPPOSITE of accent erasure.

It ensures that you can't label an entire accent as "wrong English." Which is an absurd proposition.

I quite assure you, that the way a lot of Midwesterners pronounce "SCUBA", the "a" at the end sounds just like the "a" at the beginning of "apple" (at least with our pronunciation of "apple", anyway).

So, labeling accents as "wrong English" is an absurd proposition...and yet Tanarii and I are "objectively wrong" in how we pronounce things. These are mutually exclusive statements.

Like Tanarii said, you are advocating SCUBA as "SKOO-buh", and we (and the people where we come from) do not drop it into an "uh" sound. It sounds more like "SKOO-bah". Which is, in fact, the same as the beginning of "Ahpp-ull". So, if that's just our Midwestern accent...then by your own admission, it is not wrong English, and all your condescension is misplaced.

OTOH, if there is only one right way to pronounce it, then all your condescension is hypocrisy, because it was you who said labeling accents as "wrong English" is absurd.

Spoiler: Look, Ma, more condescension!

Show

I haven't seen any words in the text not found in English. So I'm not sure what you're on about.

Then again, I'm not sure what you're on about in a lot of this thread.

You can tell there was no checking before that declaration. Which explains a lot about how things have been going.

Wow, we sure are lucky to have the only right-thinking person on this thread. Us idiots don't know how good we have it! Thank you for being the only person who is capable of making intelligent conversation.
*rolls eyes*

So, which is it? Is your condescending tone misplaced because our accent isn't wrong? Or is your condescending tone misplaced because it was you who made the assertion that even saying our accent could be wrong was "an absurd proposition"?

And I've yet to get a response to when you said:

Again, linguistically speaking, the idea that a made-up fantasy word has a."correct pronunciation" is as hilarious as it is incorrect.

Language doesn't care how the creator wanted it pronounced. That's not how it works.

To which I said,
"Actually, that's exactly how that works. Especially if you are referring to it within the same wheelhouse as the creator intended it for.

If I was talking about Harry Potter lore with Harry Potter fans, and referred to Voldemort's Horcrux, pronouncing "hor-KRUZH", I would actually be objectively wrong."

I am reminded of when someone tried to argue that English is a Latin-based language. And when I informed them that no scholar of English nor Linguistics had ever called English anything other than a Germanic language, and cited multiple sources, insisted my sources were wrong compared to the one thing they read, one time, but couldn't share.

On this, we quite agree. I have heard any number of people say English is "based off Latin". As I am fluent in one Romance Language (Castilian Spanish), and took French in Middle School, I hate hearing this. Romance languages are wildly different.

It has *some* latin words thrown in from aboit 400 years of French occupation of the british isles.

But saying it is in the same family as Spanish and Portuguese is just.... not correct.

Quite right. My degree is in History and Theatre, not English. But etymology is something of a hobby of mine.

Incidentally, modern English as we speak it today can mostly be traced to Elizabethan period. Shakespeare alone has created a lot more words than a lot of people give credit for. Just for example, using "elbow" as a verb...Shakespeare. College Theatre Professor had books full of examples of words Shakespeare basically invented wholesale, as well as which play they came from. "Eyeball" is another one. One of the reasons I shake my head when people claim they "can't understand Shakespeare"...except for a few jokes that don't age well time, they're written in Modern English.
Of course, I also maintain that Shakespeare isn't "literature", either. It's Theatre. It's meant to be performed on a stage, not read.

It is not primarily romantic in vocabulary.
Basically, the french influence as conquerors and nobility meant that the fancy term for things comes from french, and the normal version from germanic.
*snip*
There are a lot of old french words thrown in, but English is still a thoroughly Germanic language in the eyes of every linguist on the planet.

I think he was referring to how many individual words in our lexicon come from French (and, by extension, Latin). While our sentence structure, arrangement of adjectives and adverbs, and verb conjugation is Germanic (and thus our language is a Germanic one), an enormous amount of individual words come from French.

[Tanarii]

It is two sounds. That's the literal meaning of "diphthong". It's only one syllable though.

Yes, but links (top hits for the search term I used first) came up saying it was ah-oo "two syllables".

It did seem really weird to me too, and that's even with all the other things we've disagreed on.