How do you pronounce "centaur" and why?
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?
sen-tor
As in taurus, which rhymes with torus.
That's one of my wife's answers.
You're very prompt.
That's how merriam webster pronounces it! I'd pronounce it like that as well, got curious, so I googled
This is how I pronounce it in Canada
Correctly, smugly and pretentiously
Nice.
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.
Like the other commenter I pronounce it sen-tor. Just like the word "dinosaur" I would pronounce die-no-sor if that makes sense. Both words end in "aur".
...though now you've got me curious about how you and your wife pronounce dinosaur :)
Dino-saw. That's just because of how the DNA molecule character pronounces it in Jurassic Park, and it cracks me up.
I always heard it as dina-sour in Jurassic Park, can't shake that mental reference haha
Man, English is a mess.
Be fair. We inherited most of that mess from the French.
You're not wrong.
I pronounce it like sen + tar, and accent it like boxcar. Can't think of a reason, that's just how it looks to me.
Scent-ore
Simply "englishified" from French where I’ve ever heard only one way, Centaur (100 tor).
sen-tar
"sen-" like "cent" (like 25 cents), and "-tar" like "a tar pit"
Cent-aur.
Cent-our
¢-aur — I'm not sure why I pronounce it that way; it's just how I've always pronounced it.
sen-tar.
i could see sen-tor.
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)
Ken (as the name) - ta (with a hard T and A as in catapult) - ur (with an u like in Vonnegut's name)
tho I'm from europe speaking a weird ass language
Danish?
that's weird, too, but no
Cen-toor
I pronounce it "Phil". And he would appreciate it if you would stop staring at his missing eye.
sans-taure (because I'm francophone)
C'est la voie.
Sen-towr
After reading this thread i don't know anymore.
Cen tar
Or cen tor
I don't pay close enough attention to myself to be sure which i normally say
Both relatable and understandable. Thank you for the answer!
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.
Sin tar is the usual way, though it'll sometimes come out more sin tawr, where the au is a bit more drawn out.
Sin tore is a fairly common one.
However, sin tar is more common, at least with what I've heard in meat space. That's a fairly limited thing though, since most of the people I have talked to over my fifty years have been fellow southerners. We do tend to use softer vowels in most cases, and tar is softer than tore in the way we tend to do vowels.
However, with the latin and Greek origins of the word, I'd argue that the tar or tawr would lean closer to that than tore, just because of similar words. When an au is present in medical terminology (which is where almost all of my latin and Greek comes from) it usually gets pronounced aw or ah, not oh.
But, I never hear anyone pronounce the initial C as a K, and that's the way it would have been in both of those languages originally. The Greek version is spelled with a K, when written with the usual alphabet rather than Greek. Kentauros.
Which is an aside.
Wikipedia lists the two I did as the usual pronunciations, fwiw. And all the dictionaries with audio options are either those two, or slight variations of them, where the au sound is rounder or flatter than the norm.
Thing is, it's a word in a living language. Whatever the original English pronunciation may have been, that can change, so supporting a pronunciation is kind of meaningless. What matters is consensus over time, and by location.
So, a regional accent that sounds more like cent-ur is just as valid in that region, it just isn't standard. So would any other variant be, if there's enough people using it to be called a consensus.
Personally, I say sen tore.
According to my classics professor ~20 years ago, we can't know how "au" would've been pronounced in the greek.
He told us that ancient greek diphthong pronunciation is just made up. Apparently it's much harder to reconstruct those sounds confidently, but that didn't stop past classicists from claiming their reckonings as incontrovertible facts. Oxford and cambridge used to expell students for following the diphthong pronunciations of the other, but both are basically guesses.
Yeah, it's an issue for sure.
Southeast.
Sehn-tar, because I am American and that's how I learned to say it. How am I meant to justify a common pronunciation?
Cent as sent + taur as tor. We pronounce most greek c's as s in english as is cicero or cent being pronounced with an s sound instead of a k sound. Tor is the same as in taurus. Mine is not the only correct pronunciation, my explanation is just the justification for my specific pronunciation
Wait you’re telling me it’s Kickero? 🤯
Back in his day, yes. In modern greek it is sisero and in modern latin it is Chichero. Similarly, in Julius Caesar's day, his name would have been pronounced Kai-zar and in modern latin and italian, it is Chai-zar.
Kai-tawr, obvs
sin-a-tar just because it seems right, even though the spelling clearly indicates otherwise.
Well, it seems not a single other person agrees with me on my choice of pronunciation, but it's nice to not be the only one whose answer isn't based on the spelling!
Thank you for the answer.
Kenta-kun thsnks to a Japanese dota 2 stream
In Finnish we say kentauri and you can go ahead and imagine Japanese pronunciation for it and it's mostly the same. Finnish is just more neutral in tone imo
Sɛntɵ
centower
Sentour.
Can’t are
The most incorrect pronunciation i can come up with is probably ken-TAH-oo-ur
That's like the most correct one if there even could be a 'correct' way to pronounce a word of foreign origin in most languages.
the Greeks in here are saying that's basically correct.
Well, apparently my answer ("sen-chwar") is also very incorrect. Someone else in this thread also answered "sen-a-tar." I would argue both beat yours for incorrectness, as they don't fit the spelling.
I thought mine was based on something French, based on almost nothing, but another person in the thread has corrected that theory.
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.
Sen-tar
Because that's the only way I've ever even heard it pronounced. This thread is gonna be wild.
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.
I recognise that “kentawur” is correct, but reject it because “sentar” just sounds more correct.
I saw sen-tar as well!
I pronounce it centaur, as in it rhymes with faur, kaur, boobaur. You know, the "aur" sound, like "ooohhuuuurrr" but more dynamic.