My wife pronounces it three different ways, each of which she can support. I pronounce it one, but other than that it’s the way I’ve heard it I can’t support my pronunciation even after some searches. What’s yours and why?
Sentår. Phonetically with Norwegian letter.
Kentævr
Kentaur på min dialekt 🤓
Vestlending?
Stemme det!
Kenta-kun thsnks to a Japanese dota 2 stream
tsen-taür, where ü is not an umlaut, but a diaeresis meaning that you pronounce the second vowel in a row, like in naïve or coöperation.
I come from Poland and we read in a consistent way.
The way shit’s written \s.
Such a question would make no sense in Polish.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis
coöperation.
I come from Poland and we read in a consistent way.
Okay I don’t doubt yours is consistent, but it’s really hard to grasp. I come from Finland and in the Nordics you would never get oö öo aä or äa combinations I’m pretty sure. Å can go with a but a doesn’t really go with ö I don’t think and uhm.
Anyways my point is I’ve no idea how you would go about trying to pronounce coöperation. Or rather what your idea of it is.
I’d couldn’t argue which is more constant, but Finnish is every consistent. And pretty much in line with IPA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Finnish
hevonen [ˈheʋonen]
hernekeitto [ˈherneˌkːei̯tːo]
tule! [ˈtuˌle]
Example of words with their IPA pronunciation. When something like “geography” in English is “ʤɔ́grəfɪj”.
Those don’t look alike at all. So I’m sure polish can be consistent, but to me at least, I’d be afraid of how complex that consistency is.
In Finnish wr say “kentauri” and in ipa that’s pretty much the same.
Finnish pronunciation feels to me like a subset of Polish. The only difference is the stressed syllable.
You are saying you never read two vowels in a row? You just make them longer?
After writing that I see that contradicts the “subset” sentence.
You are saying you never read two vowels in a row?
No. I’m saying the ones which are umlauted don’t go with their umlauted partners. You can äiti easily. That’s mom. But you can’t have Äati. That’s not a word. Ä + a don’t go together.
I may be wrong because of how flexible Finnish is, but I don’t think a Finnish word exists where there is either äa oe öo combination. Äo maybe, but not likely. (edit def no äo either, just not a thing, I checked the exceptions and now I’m sure)
Its something calmed vowel harmony, which is sort of why I don’t see Polish as being any where near Finnish. The amount of consonants you guys use is unnatural to a Finnish person.
Finnish pronunciation is definitely not a “subset of Polish”. Polish is a PIE-language. We’re not even in the same language tree bro.
https://www.sssscomic.com/comicpages/196.jpg
What I mean by subset is: a Polish person will pronounce every finnish word correctly and a Finnish person will pronounce most of Polish words correctly.
a Polish person will pronounce every finnish word correctly and a Finnish person will pronounce most of Polish words correctly.
I’m Finnish and I’ve had a Polish friend for 15 years and I can say you’re most definitely mistaken.
for the sake of fun give me a sentence to pronounce
From now on, I shall only refer to them as kentauru.
😡
Scent-ore
Simply “englishified” from French where I’ve ever heard only one way, Centaur (100 tor).
Cent-aur.
Sen-tar. I used to say sen-tore as a kid (as in taurine) but I think it sounds better the other way. Also easier to say in my opinion.
Hard C and noticeable U: Ken-tower.
Is tower 1 or 2 syllables for you?
Two. The last part of centaur is tau-or.
Similarly, “dinosaur” is pronounced dino-sour, and not as dino-saw.
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Cent-our
Can’t are
Correctly, smugly and pretentiously
Nice.
Senn-torr
The “taur” is probably the same root as in “Taurus” and "el Toro"¹, which I’ve only ever heard said like torr, so I say it the same. The first part I don’t think is ever said anything other than “senn” right?
¹I can’t back that up, since they mean bull not horse and I have no sources. We do see the same root pop up in “Minotaur” from the same language though, and that is a part bull part man.
Tauros in greek is bull, yeah. The minotaur was the Bull of Minos. It may link back to the pre-greek people of crete, known for bull-leaping.
The “ken” in “Kentauros” is thought to mean piercing, but why is a piercing bull a half man/horse? There’s no obvious explanation.
I love the idea of -tauros coming to mean a monstrous combination, like franken- in english. But if there were any evidence of that some very excited nerds would’ve told us, I’m sure.
I love the idea of -tauros coming to mean a monstrous combination
That is a great theory and until an excited nerd tells me otherwise it’s what I’m going to choose to believe (albeit without telling anyone else just in case)
Sen-tar
Because that’s the only way I’ve ever even heard it pronounced. This thread is gonna be wild.
I pronounce it centaur, as in it rhymes with faur, kaur, boobaur. You know, the “aur” sound, like “ooohhuuuurrr” but more dynamic.
I thought this question would get almost no attention, but so far I’ve gotten almost one response per minute. Well predicted.
I even learned that local language changes things from a couple replies, which I hadn’t considered.
It’s still so interesting noticing comments from you, as I used to be frustrated by the bubble letters in your name. Since my client started suppressing that, I find you often contribute to conversations and I appreciate it.
I tried to express this once before, but at that point my client was still somewhat immature and randomly put my comment in a different, irrelevant thread.
Anyway, thanks for being a classic and long lasting part of lemmy and for showing up in my thread! I’m glad it provided you with some enlightenment.
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I recognise that “kentawur” is correct, but reject it because “sentar” just sounds more correct.
Just because an English word was originally Latin and is written the same way, doesn’t mean it’s pronounced the same way. It’s an English word now. It has an English pronunciation, pluralisation and definition that can all be different from the original. “Kentawur” is not correct for the English word.
I saw sen-tar as well!
If it’s in a Greek or ancient Latin context I pronounce it with a hard C, but if it’s a general English context I pronounce it with a soft C.
I’m not sure what the third way would be.
So far, the main way I haven’t seen suggested.
I guess I owe my wife an apology.
So how do you pronounce it?
Honestly, I’m afraid to say. No one will support me, it seems.
Sen-chwar.
Wouldn’t that be spelled centuar (like how “actually” is often pronounced “ackschwally”) and not centaur?
I have not once in my entire life heard anyone say it like that. Where are you from? Maybe it’s a regional thing…
>EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted wants to know your location.
Maryland. Maybe it’s regional, like you said. However, I was sheltered growing up, so maybe not.
That very well could be regional. Are you near Baltimore? I grew up around DC, but mostly in Annapolis, and I’ve always said it like cen-tar
Edit - I agree with the person below, your brain probably decided that’s how it was pronounced at a young age. There’s a bunch of words I’ve read but never say out loud because I know I will say them wrong! I should just own them, there’s too many great words out there!
I am no longer in Maryland, but yes, I spent most of my life within an hour of Baltimore. I was indeed an avid reader, so it’s possible that I made my own decision about its pronunciation (that has certainly happened with other words), but I think I got this one from hearing my mom say it. I can’t prove that, though.
“Hermione”
…yea I wanna explanation
Sorry, I’m not sure how to explain. It’s the only way I’ve ever heard it said.
I’ve never heard it that way but I get it. A combination of (the relevant bits of) suture and jaguar. Only problem is, it’s not spelled centuar, it’s spelled centaur.
However, until one shows up to personally correct your spelling and pronunciation, I think you’re free to call imaginary creatures whatever you call them.
I told my wife about this thread and about how you said you pronounced it differently and she jokingly said “sen-CHWAR” in a funny voice. When I read your comment off to her she laughed incredibly hard. Her joke turned out to be spot on lol.
Rude.
But I’m glad I could add some levity to your day! I can often make my wife chortle, but when I can make her laugh incredibly hard it’s a good day.
So on the one hand, I think you are going to find almost nobody agrees with your pronunciation. On the other hand, you should wear your mispronunciations with pride because what that tells me is that you were a reader growing up and likely came about this word the first time in text without any other context, maybe even many times before you heard it spoken. Your brain made an educated guess (I’m guess pulling from the pronunciation of “jaguar”?). It got it wrong, but understandably so, and it has cemented in your brain. Fix it if you care to, but no real need. Either way, kudos for being a young reader.
Chwar? Like… Shwarma?
Now i’m hungry for a Centaur shawarma.
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ken-tavr, I think that’s similar to how it pronounced in a lot of languges around here, it’s also pretty similar how original greeks did it (kένταυροι)
Solid.
