Talk:Orithyia

Pronunciation

The pronunciation currently given and cited to a 19th c. English dictionary is far from standard and, if used in a freshman mythology class (at least in the States), would be regarded as incorrect. The penultimate syllable, -θυι-, is not pronounced θaɪ, but θwiː — ɒ.rei'θwiː.ə. Does anyone have a more current source for pronunciations like this?  davidiad { t } 20:01, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Without meaning to suggest that my opinion or judgment should rule the day, I can only say that I have used "Ili-THIGH-uh" and "Ori-THIGH-uh" in United States college classrooms at all levels for Ilithyia, Orithyia, etc., and have regarded them as the only correct pronunciations & taught my students to do so. (They don't pay attention to any advice on the subject, which is why when they have PhD's and academic titles they still pronounce the names by gut and at random.) I have heard others commit the THWEE pronunciations and have usually concluded they are under the misapprehension that they are trying to pronounce French, as that pronunciation has no solid tradition in English (it has been used more often in reading out Greek originals, but even there is an inauthentic choice).

I freely admit my prejudice. I aim to identify the sound traditional English pronunciation. Sometimes there are multiple ones (not here IMO except for the unfortunate delusion on the part of some educated people who tried to get it right that there was an extra syllable in there). The usage of Classicists is of little help. I know one Macarthur "genius" who pronounced the initial consonant of the pharaoh Cheops' name as if he were deliciously grilled lamb or pork. Correct pronunciation of English names of ancient Greek and Roman things seems to fall outside of the Classicist's expertise, so perhaps the 19th-century orthoepists are not really so peculiar an authority to consult?

I would be on the verge of agreeing with you wholeheartedly, Davidiad, if I could believe that there is in fact some real thing still in operation called a "standard" from which the traditionally correct one (the one you'd have to know if you want to read English poetry of 1650-1950 with its intended music) could be called "far." If the proposal here were, "It is absurd to suggest that standard pronunciations of these old words exist in English today. They are only in use by a bunch of folks in classrooms and at academic conferences who don't care a whit about how they ought to be pronounced," then I would see considerable truth in it (and still argue for conserving some encyclopedic reference to how the names were pronounced in English when there was such a thing as a standard). Wareh (talk) 19:39, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Looking at your pronunciation again, I suggest you might find congenial the project of giving, additionally where they are lacking, Ancient Greek pronunciations. (I believe in this case that would still be different as in this diphthong it is the second element that I think most agree assumes the function of a glide or semivowel and not the first.) I am by no means living under a rock where I don't know that, against the school of thought that these are English words that survived the Great Vowel Shift, etc., is another (perhaps dominant) one that says (without consistency, thoroughness, or system) to pronounce them all in some partial approximation of what the ancients did. To my mind, all sides would be well served by articles that give "traditional English" pronunciation and "reconstructed ancient" pronunciation. Perhaps they would even wikilink to an informative article that explained how the traditional English pronunciations, while a real phenomenon, now exist as the less fashionable cousins of the tendency to make a rough gesture towards the Greek.

I guess in this postscript I'm really reacting especially to your ei. Once you spell it ei at all in English (which is quite common, I admit - I tried to quantify it but Google Books no longer delivers a statement of how many hits a search has produced), you are following the system of Thoukydides, etc., which is fine, but it doesn't erase the old Thu-SID-ides from our language. I suggest that when people use the Akhilleus system, they are inviting you to give your imitation of a foreign pronunciation. (Maybe you can toss out some good examples of names in which writing ei in English would still look positively weird and unfamiliar?) If we go looking for a "standard" that explains why PhD's will sometimes say O-RAY-THWEE-UH alongside KREE-on, and even if a few have said CRAY-on or even CREH-on to be more European (like mo-DAIR-nity for mo-DER-nity), for some reason irony hasn't yet become AYrony, well, we are not going to be able to describe a fixed target. The people who put together the odd pronunciation glossary in his temporibus valde iniquis are certainly not dealing with more knowledge or authority than you or I to fix a "standard."

The dual approach seems right, because, if the trend towards "authenticity" continues, a reader could know about, say, Sappho that for some centuries we Anglophone rubes conspired to say SAFFoh but that now we know it's only correct to avoid the un-Greek sound f, etc. No objection if the pronunciations that date from the existence of a standard are labeled as historically traditional, etc., but they are the only standard that's really existed for the past several centuries. Wareh (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

P.P.S. Let me just add that I do accept it as self-evident that names with spellings like Orithyia and Ilithyia (not to mention Eileithyia) have no doubt always flummoxed English readers and led to nervous and awkward improvisation (though no doubt less and less nervous with the turn of the ages). Wareh (talk) 20:15, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Wareh, thanks for all this ... I do often blow right parallel traditions like this. I find it odd that we've both had such different experiences with the classroom pronunciation of these names. The pedagogical approach to -υι- doesn't favor treating the second as more of a semivowel except the case of word initial υι- as in υἱός, which we still hear pronounced hweeos alongside huyos. Mastronarde would appear to extend that pronunciation to all instances, but other textbooks and grammars give the pronunciation as in wit or, perhaps most common, French huit ... which may be where your conclusion about we thwee-speakers comes from. But since my post was based upon observation—one that is apparently more subjective than I thought, since we have similar backgrounds and yet completely different experiences—it looks like I should just leave it as is in this case. But now I wonder if my training has been utterly disastrous when it comes to this combination: should it more accurately be ɒ.rei'θuːjə with varying treatment of the iota to taste?  davidiad { t } 21:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't remember everything I've read with certainty, only that I personally concluded to go with [yj] as what's filed in my head for the most likely Classical pronunciation. You're citing Mastronarde, etc., so it seems you agree you're after Greek pronunciations on which you can then Americanize the vowels? Sound enough description of some scholars' speaking habits. In any case, Mastronarde's website says "Diphthong combining the rounded vowel [ü] with semivocalic i = [y]," so if he elsewhere recommends[wi], I think that's out of classroom expediency only. The traditional /ai/ understood, it seems, that we essentially have an υ as the vowel quality here. Wareh (talk) 23:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Mastro's consistent on the pronunciation you link: the wi pronunciation is given by works like Smythe, which means it's probably what Kühner–Blass had. I'm hundreds of miles from the sorts of studies that would actually discuss this.  davidiad { t } 14:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok, that rings a bell. I'm pretty sure Mastronarde's version has eclipsed what Smyth says in most people's minds, and I feel confident that readers of Vox Graeca come away with an impression in favor of it. Wareh (talk) 19:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)