this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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why's it so hard 😭

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[–] Fleur_@aussie.zone 2 points 3 hours ago

Just say it without the p

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago
[–] Wbear@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 hours ago

Tow luh mee

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago

And they probably call it a Puhteradactyl

[–] badcommandorfilename@lemmy.world 18 points 12 hours ago

PO - TO - LEMMY

[–] procrastitron@lemmy.world 11 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

I think Joey would be much closer to the right pronunciation in this case.

I’m pretty sure ancient Greek didn’t have any concept of a “Silent Pi”. That leading “p” sound is supposed to be said.

It might be really hard for a native English speaker to say those two consonants together, but that doesn’t mean Joey is wrong for trying.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The "right" pronunciation depends on what you take for reference. If you're treating the word as an English one, the woman is right - English doesn't allow this sort of initial cluster, and spelling-wise it's well-established that some initial consonants are mute (see e.g. "knife").

And, if treating the word as a Koine Greek one... odds are both are butchering the word so much that [pə] wouldn't save the day. Even the man is likely pronouncing it as [pə.'tɒl.ə.mi]; the Greek word would be more like [pto.le.'mɛ:.os], or [pto.le.'maɪ̯.os] with a really conservative pronunciation.

[–] tml@urbanists.social 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

@lvxferre @procrastitron As it happens, "Ptolemaois" is how the name is written in at least German, Swedish and Finnish, so speakers of those languages (Swedish and Finnish myself) likely pronounce it most correctly?

Never really understood why English insists of weirdly dropping the final bits of Greek and Latin names ("Plutarch" vs "Plutarkhos", "Justinian" vs "Justinianus" etc)

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 24 minutes ago (1 children)

If by "most correctly", you mean "the closest to what Koine Greek would do", then yes. Note however that each language will impose restrictions on the allowed sounds and sequences of; for example Finnish won't use [ä] like Ancient Greek would, simply because the sound isn't there in Finnish (it adapts it to an [ɑ]).

Also note the word itself can be pronounced multiple ways even in Koine Greek. For example the ⟨αῖ⟩ diphthong can be read as either [äɪ̯] (as in English "by") or as [ɛ:] (as in English air); as far as I'm aware this sound change happened in early Koine Greek times.

Never really understood why English insists of weirdly dropping the final bits of Greek and Latin names (“Plutarch” vs “Plutarkhos”, “Justinian” vs “Justinianus” etc)

Short explanation: English does it because it's what French does. And French does it because of its history as a Latin descendant.

Long explanation:

Since French is a Romance language, it's the result of a Latin dialect undergoing a bunch of sound changes. Those sound changes affected all words inherited from Latin. For example capus/capum¹ → chef, bonus/bonum → bon, Romanus/Romanum → Romain (yup, it applies to personal names!) ille → le, so goes on.

However, Latin is a prestige language in Europe. So even if French is a Latin descendant, it kept reborrowing words from Latin. And because of the above, French started changing those loanwords in a specific way, that kind of mimics part of its own evolution.

In other words: French developed a convention on how to handle Latin borrowings². And part of that convention is to sub/remove the endings. Other Romance languages do something similar³.

What I said applies to the Latin names. Now, the Greek names go one step deeper: Latin itself borrowed Greek words left and right, adapting them into Latin. Some would be eventually inherited by French. So the convention on how to handle Latin names in French also handles Greek names: "Latinise them first, then pretend they're Latin words."

Then you get English. Most of that Classical knowledge entered English through French, so English borrowed that convention of adapting Latin words too. Eventually developing its own convention on how to do it, that looks kind of similar to the one French used back then. And some names were subjected to local sound changes, and just like the Romance languages English messes a fair bit with word endings. And the vowels, too (Great Vowel Shift).

In contrast, German also treats Latin as a prestige language. But since it's neither a Romance language nor borrowing the convention from one, it's getting the names straight from Latin, and modifying them a bit less⁴. That includes keeping the nominative endings of the words.

NOTES:

  1. I'm listing words by their Latin nominative and accusative. The nominative is the form likely to be borrowed; however, French and the other Romance languages inherited the accusative.
  2. This can be seen by the Modern French renditions of those names: Ptolémée, Justinien, Plutarque.
  3. For reference, look at the Italian versions of those names: Tolomeo, Giustiniano, Plutarco. Parts of the ending are still there, unlike in French, but the ending -s/-m is gone.
  4. It still does change them, mind you. After a word is borrowed into a language, it's subjected to the sound changes of that language; plus spelling plays a huge role, and even in non-Romance languages there are minor conventions on how you're "supposed" to handle Latin names. Cue to German spelling "Justinianus" instead of "IVSTINIANVS" or "Iustinianus".

Sorry for the wall of text.

[–] tml@urbanists.social 1 points 19 minutes ago (1 children)

@lvxferre No need to be sorry, lovely and very readable write-up. Quality content!

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 9 minutes ago
[–] procrastitron@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

… although, I guess any pronunciation will be wrong because the actual name was “Πτολεμαίος”, so if you wanted a correct transliteration you would have to use “Ptolemaious”

Regardless, Joey is still closer to the correct pronunciation.

[–] teft@lemmy.world 6 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Πτολεμαίος

You can put it in google translate to hear a modern greek version of it. The P sound is there but nearly silent.

https://translate.google.com/?sl=el&tl=en&text=%CE%A0%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%B1%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%82&op=translate

[–] mrsemi@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago

How about the breathtakingly wrong Latin pronunciations?

Veni Vidi Vici

[–] jbrains@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 5 hours ago

I'd take [gb] and [pt] all day over [ŋθ] or [θɹ].

Unless you mean [g͡b] (the co-articulated consonant, often common in languages from West Africa). Then I'm saying noooope.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 hours ago

That's why I say helicotter.

[–] wise_pancake@lemmy.ca 5 points 13 hours ago

Any it's the last frame an entirely different pronunciation?

I'm with Joey.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 4 points 12 hours ago

If you wanted me to pronounce it that way, you should have spelled it that way.