On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:23:20 +0000, Aardvark wrote:
> On Wed, 07 Mar 2007 13:28:41 +0000, Whiskers wrote:
>
>
>> Latin always pronounces g 'hard' - as in English 'good' - but Latin has no
>> letter y so this is obviously a hybrid name. (I've noticed that
>> 'scientific Latin' does use y rather often).
>>
>
> The word probably has Greek etymology. The 'zy' being the English version
> of 'zeta-upsilon'. For some reason when this combination of Greek letters
> is transliterated into English the 'upsilon' (which for all intents and
> purposes is the equivalent of the letter 'u') becomes 'y' although the
> letter becomes shortened when pronouncing it.
>
> For this reason I suspect that this section of the word would more than
> likely be pronounced 'zu' with the 'u' being very short almost to the
> point of being a mute vowel.
>
> Thus I would pronounce the word 'zi-j-yella'.
>
>
>
Forgot to mention. When the Greek letter 'gamma' (g) is transliterated
into English, what was a hard letter (as in 'go) becomes a soft letter (as
in 'jam').
Think of other Greek-based words like 'genesis' (in Greek with the hard
'g') or 'syzygy' (in which the first two letters 'y' are pronounced like
the letter 'i' as in 'it'- 'sizijee').
This is why I made the assumption that the 'g' in zygiella is soft.
--
Registered Linux User 413057.
Both Mandriva 2007 and Ubuntu 6.06
You can have it all. My empire of hurt.
>> Stay informed about: pronunciation question 
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