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[Opinions] Re: Polyxena
by New_Chloe
6/30/2010, 9:28 AM
in reply to a message by lizagirl
Do you have a PhD in Ancient Greek?
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- lizagirl   +3
6/30/2010, 9:39 AM
Who, me? I was simply drawing a conclusion based on the fact that the pronunciation of Xanthippe is "ZAN-tip-ee", the pronunciation of Xena is "ZEE-nah", the pronunciation of xylophone is "ZY-lo-FOHN", and the pronunciation of Xenon is "ZEE-non". All words are ancient Greek or from the ancient Greek, and in all, the X is prounced as the English Z. That, to me, would indicate that the proper pronunciation of the X in Polyxena is also Z.
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- Hecate
6/30/2010, 9:47 AM
These are the latinized pronounciations of these words/names. In Ancient and Modern Greek X is not pronounced Z.BTW, Xanthippe is "ksan-THEE-pee" in Greek and "zan-THEE-pee" in English :)
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- New_Chloe   +1
6/30/2010, 9:44 AM
Xanthippe is said "Ksan-thee-pay" in Ancient Greek, and Xena is a made-up name, maybe based on the Greek Xenia, which is "Ksenia" - it's only modern English that turns the X into a X sound. So maybe both Polyxena pronunciations are right, it just depeneds if you want to say it like they did back in Aristotle's day or if you want to modernize it.
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- lizagirl
6/30/2010, 9:51 AM
OK...not to be a bother, but what's your source? I've read a lot on Indo-European languages, and I've read a lot in encyclopedias about Greek mythology, but I've never come across this bit of information. (ADD moment...how DO people know about ancient pronunciation, anyways?)Thanks for the info!Liza
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