why’s it so hard 😭

  • procrastitron@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • procrastitron@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      … 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.

      • Tor Lillqvist@urbanists.social
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        1 year ago

        @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)