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Hi, as this is the section for Useless Talk, I have a bona fide useless question.

Linux itself can be pronounced either "lin-ux" or "ly-nux" and I'm told that both pronunciations are considered correct, right?

What about Salix? Is it "Say-lix" or "Sa-lix". I personally say "Sa-lix". What do you think?

Cheers J.J.

Thanks for the welcomes BTW.

I agree with you, because that's how I was taught to pronounce Latin at school. But there is an older pronunciation (as commonly still used in England for Linnaean taxonomy) that I think would choose your first option instead, as if it were a native English word.

That's all very well in theory, but how do the devs pronounce it in practice? Maybe it depends what language they're speaking ...

How about a poll of users, too?

It's Latin, so it's Saa-lix.

But it's a short a:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ry%3Dsalix

Besides, that would rhyme with "daleks"

But not an english "a" (ay) It's an a like in "salt".

Then it would rhyme with "Horlicks"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horlicks

Frankly, I think we will need to conduct this discussion in IPA

EDIT Just to be clear for speakers of some languages spoken in these parts - the sound I have in mind is (roughly) as in 'machen' rather than 'aber', let alone 'später'; 'avoir' not 'âme'; 'habits'; alpha in κατα; the first letter in 'amare' not the third.

It's interesting that, even though we in England noticed some time in the last century that it is unlikely the Romans spoke their language with an English accent, probably around the time we lost our own empire, still, we use the nearest approximate English phoneme. Same thing with (Ancient) Greek. Omega for instance we no longer pronounce with the 'o' of boat, but with the 'o' of 'or'. However it's very unlikely that's quite right.

I actually use both. Depends on what language I'm using at the time. In greek, it's definitely with a short 'a', like mimosa noted, exactly like the latin word. In english, it feels more natural to pronounce the 'a' as 'ay'. Not that it would be wrong to pronounce it with a short 'a' too, but it doesn't feel quite right, at least not to me.

mimosa wrote:Same thing with (Ancient) Greek. Omega for instance we no longer pronounce with the 'o' of boat, but with the 'o' of 'or'. However it's very unlikely that's quite right.

Actually, the phonetic distinction between omega (ω) and omicron (ο) has disappeared from modern greek too since several centuries. But it was never like the 'ο' in 'boat' I think. It was more like an 'ο', but having double the length of an 'ο'. That's also how the letter ω came up, it's two ο's put next to each other, that probably lost the top part for easier and faster writing.

Omega as in "boat" was the British imperialist pronunciation- just as if it were the diphthong we (quite wrongly) think of as corresponding to Latin "long o", with the same relationship as the a in "say" has to the 'a' in Salix if you pronounce it as you do in English.

mimosa wrote:as in 'machen' rather than 'aber', let alone 'später'; 'avoir' not 'âme'; 'habits'; alpha in κατα; the first letter in 'amare' not the third.

In "machen" the a is shorter, in "aber" it's longer than in Salix Amare is a good example, but that's latin, too

mimosa wrote:It's interesting that, even though we in England noticed some time in the last century that it is unlikely the Romans spoke their language with an English accent

Amare is a good example, but that's latin, too

... and Italian