"How do you pronounce "Hoplite"?" Topic

Seriously, I never thought about it until now. I've always pronounced it "HOP-LIGHT", but now I've read that it is pronounced "OP-LEE-TIZ".

Dictionary.com says:

link

throatwarbler mangrove

… but now I've read that it is pronounced "OP-LEE-TIZ".

Screw the pedants. Maybe that is how the word is pronounced in Greek (I wouldn't know), but in ENGLISH the word is pronounced HOP-light.

That is how nimrods who want to pretend that they are smarter than the rest of us yahoos pronounce it.

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You run into this in the AWI too. Pedants insist on "Hessen Kassel", but that is for when you are writing in German. In English, it's Hess Cassel.

Back in my Diplomacy by mail playing days, the editor of Graustark remarked that he made a point of writing "Brasil". He was admonished by the recipient that that applies when writing Brazilian Portuguese, but Brazil applied when speaking English.

hop-lite

Op-lee-tiz – reminds me of calling foot skirmishers psiloi. And I like the game.

@editor I would not say so, people who visited a humanistifc gymnasium here in europe, did learn old greek, why should not they pronounce hoplites right ? Only so that guys who can't won't feel bad about it ?

I would guess it should be hop-lit-eh. No accent on any syllable. Ancients were not really into that. short vowels all the way across. Not an Ancient Greek speaker but I did spent the night at a Holiday Inn.

John is absolutely right.

"Hoplite" spelled thusly is an English word, and should be pronounced in an English fashion "HOP, Light".

The Ancient Greek pronunciation was something like "Hop, Lee, Taze" But, that's for when you are speaking Greek.

Similarly, we pronounce "Caesar" "See-Zar" but the Romans would have pronounced it "Kie-sar" (kie rhymes with "tie"). It would be silly to pronounce Caesar "Kie-sar" when speaking English to an English speaking audience.

This comes from someone who has taught Latin for a living for 20 years or more and who has studied Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and other weird stuff.

More filling!

If it wasn't pronounced 'Hoplite' how on Earth could lyricists use the common rhyme 'stop light'?

You hear that one all the time.

Isn't it nice to find something that unifies Britons and Americans like this! The singleminded ability to ruthlessly Anglicise foreign words!

Look at how the English speaking world has butchered "gyro" a pita sandwich or the rotisseried meat it contains. The Greeks pronounce the word with the g taking on a yh sound, more of an h (as in the word he). Phonetically it is closeer to "YHee-row".

I'd have hoped that anyone when speaking would always try to pronounce words properly simply to be understood. 'Hop-light' must surely be a Greek low alcohol beer but what ever it is, I think it's not the noun for a heavily armoured citizen-soldier.

I wonder what our friends from the non-English speaking counties must think of we Anglos who refuse to call people what they call themselves. An English 'hop-light'? Didn't know they ever had any.

Mexicans call folk from the United States "Americanos" or "Gringos" when they are speaking Spanish to one another. Germans call Americans "Amerikaners" and British people "Englanders" or some such. We call Germans, "Germans" and not Deutche. The French call Germans "Allemans" or something like that. Norwegians fon't call themselves "Norwegians", and they probably don't call Americans "Americans" precisely.

Everyone on Earth calls foreigners by names that are somewhat or significantly different from what they call themselves. When you are speaking a particular language, it is right and proper to use the rules of that language.

It's the same for borrowed words. Hoplite is now an English word pronounced in an English way, to refer to an ancient Greek soldier. There's nothing wrong or unexpected about that. I'm sure the modern Greeks don't pronounce "Computer" or "Camera" exactly the way we do in English (both originally Latin words but with their modern use in their modern sense spread around by English speakers).

I'm sure there are a hundred foreign pronunciations of "George Washington" that would curl your hair. But, whatever they are, it's perfectly appropriate for speakers of foreign tongues to use such pronunciation among themselves.

I pronouce it with a mix of

hop loyite and hop light somewere in between those two.

I like how Rome 2 pronounces Macedonians- Makedonians!!!

I always thought it was hop-lih-tay.

Go figure.

First, the Greek would actually sound something like what Silvermoon suggests, "Hoplitays." The first vowel, a short o has a rough breathing mark over it and this where the "h" sounds comes from. The "ays" represents the long "e" sound and the final "s". Of course, in English we don't normally pronounce the final e (courtesy of French) and the final consonant thus disappears.

On the one hand, I agree with those who maintain that since "hoplite" is an English word (true, derived from a Greek root, but extant in English translations of Greek texts since the 1700s at least) it should be given an English pronunciation, i.e. rhyming with "stoplight".

On the other hand, I am one of those smarty-pants pedants who pronounces "psiloi" to rhyme with "decoy" rather than "my boy", and for the essentially same reason as above – it is NOT an English word, appearing virtually never outside of academia until WRG included it in their rules.

To analogize, we say "Munich" rather than "Muenchen", but conversely we do NOT pronounce "Luftwaffe" to rhyme with "tuft safe".

Marcus Brutus is technically correct, and I agree generally with DrSkull, there is a Greek way to say the word, and a common Anglicised way. Both are fine. I would tend to Hellenise most Greek words – so Seleukid rather than Seleucid, but I wouldn't dream of doing that to really commonly Anglicised proper nouns like Cyprus, Thrace and Macedon. There is rarely much consistency in how foreign terms transfer into English.

But what I don't get is the scholar bashing which haunts this site from time to time. Not directly pointing the finger at John, but comments like "That is how nimrods who want to pretend that they are smarter than the rest of us yahoos pronounce it" are not helpful to the discussion and just try to reduce it to the lowest common denominator.

Meh…..

You want real translation difficulty? Try going from these United States to England and ordering "Biscuits & Gravy" for breakfast.

More on topic, look at the way the British pronounce "Marquis" or "Calais".

Here in Maine, Berlin is pronounced as burlun (no accented syllable), and Calais is kaliss.

Who wears "Nike"(rhyming with bike) shoes? A former co worker insisted that the name was pronounced that way,though."I dont say Bike-ee,so it cant be Nike-ee".Another one I remember was in a WFB,where the Demons were called "Day-mons",because it was spelled "Daemon".Finally,I had to educate my 15 y.o. nephew that GW figures were not cheaper from White Dwarf because the numbers quoted were lower than off the rack."Those figures are given in pounds,rather than dollars,a completely different currency." "Oh."

'Hop-light' must surely be a Greek low alcohol beer

Actually, it would be full strength beer alcohol wise. It would have less hops. So it would be a sweet beer.

But what I don't get is the scholar bashing which haunts this site from time to time. Not directly pointing the finger at John, but comments like "That is how nimrods who want to pretend that they are smarter than the rest of us yahoos pronounce it" are not helpful to the discussion and just try to reduce it to the lowest common denominator.

Not scholar bashing at all. Just pedant bashing, and being a cranky old fart.
Just take a look at how lawyers pronounce Latin. "Sine die" anybody?

And, BTW… The "discussion" is about how to pronounce a word. The question is asked IN ENGLISH. Not in Greek. If it were asked in Greek, my answer would be different. Assuming that I could read Greek, which I cannot.

"Hoplite" has become an English word, and should be pronounced as one. If you want it pronounced differently, spell it differently.

Calvin Trilling, about as well read and scholarly a man as you can hope to ever meet, says that "'Whom' is a word designed to make us talk like butlers."

As a side note, my spell checker thinks that "Hoplite" should be "shoplifter".
How do you pronounce "shoplifter" in Greek?

As for the States, I live 6 miles north of Wilkes Barre. (Pronounced "berry")
Ask the residents of Barre Vermont how they pronounce their town. VERY different.

My pedant side cringes when I hear my bestest gaming buddy pronounce "velites" as VEE-lites. If it's an English word, he is correct. If it's a Latin word, he is incorrect. But, he is NOT speaking Latin when he is discussing them. Unfortunately, I have been corrupted by 3 years of high school Latin.

Everyone has a different word for everything…I thought Norwegians were called Swedish?

Another barbarian who says hop-light, here.

Doug

Hopp Lite

Vel EE tays

Psi Loi

(I think I pronounce things correctly… but my classical trained expert friends always snigger when I mess up)

and Alexander of Macedon not of Ma Ke Don ( although it should be the hard K – it has been anglicised, the same as his first name!)

I think we should all try and get along, and there are other things of more concern, as long as we know what you mean, we should be ok!

Biscuits with gravy? sounds like a cruel and unusual punishment… we dip our biscuits in tea!

Is it relevant what the hoi polloi say? (did you see what I did there?)

A great strength of English is its propensity to assimilate words from different tongues. Not surprisingly, it shapes them to its own needs which includes "mangling" pronunciation. If we remember the main point of language is to be understood, I think we can put this "mangling" in perspective.

Ok,so what do you call biscuits in Britain? I dont mean cookies,but rather the types that rise in the oven,that you can eat with butter,honey or jam.I love biscuits and gravy,but only when I make it.

Ok,so what do you call biscuits in Britain? I dont mean cookies,but rather the types that rise in the oven,that you can eat with butter,honey or jam.

Well, the sort of small, soft, leavened bread known as a "biscuit" in the southeastern US doesn't really exist in England, outside of some American-themed restaurants. You can read more in a very similar discussion here: link

Who wears "Nike"(rhyming with bike) shoes? A former co worker insisted that the name was pronounced that way,though."I dont say Bike-ee,so it cant be Nike-ee".

And just to further complicate matters, the Classical Attic Greek pronunciation would have been more like "Nee-kay."

Isn't language fun?

Come now, we all know Psiloi is pronounced "silly".

@ skinkmaster:

I think you mean scones? Nice with a cup of char* & clotted cream & marmalade

* originally a Hindi word. Who knows how they pronounced it?

In greek it is opletes

you can hear it in this video

YouTube link

I do not endorse the facebook channel or any of the ideas propogated in it. Only using this for the sound of the word

"* originally a Hindi word. Who knows how they pronounced it?"

Chai.

From what I read in that link from A Lot Of Gaul,biscuits and scones are similar but not quite the same.We dont add any fruit or anything to ours.Just to clarify as well,the gravy part from biscuits and gravy is usually made from pork sausage,the grease is thickened with flour and then milk added,cooked until the gravy thickens up,and then served over the biscuits( its not a healthy dish).Usually considered a breakfast food,but can be eaten anytime.To really do it up,fry up a couple of eggs for over top of the whole thing.

KTravlos, Greek has evolved over the past 2000 years. You are listening to a modern Greek pronunciation. The genitive case has disappeared in modern Greek as another example. Language tends to smooth out over time. Has rough breathing disappeared in modern Greek? Not sure but in this case it has. So if the Greeks don't even pronounce the word correctly (it most definitely has the rough breathing in Attic and Hellenistic Greek) then who are we to disapprove how English speakers pronounce the word. I've always thought the using psiloi instead of skirmishers to be a bit unnecessary.

The above is correct. Anyone telling you they know with certainty how ancient Greek was pronounced is selling you a bill of goods. There's simply been too much lost over time.

Back to grading Greek papers. :)

Even coming from a country which pronounces Hoplite as Hop-lee-tays, I'm just not used to mixing pronunciation of different languages in a single sentence. I can't even pronounce my name correctly when speaking English.

skinkmasterreturns wrote:

From what I read in that link from A Lot Of Gaul,biscuits and scones are similar but not quite the same.We dont add any fruit or anything to ours.Just to clarify as well,the gravy part from biscuits and gravy is usually made from pork sausage,the grease is thickened with flour and then milk added,cooked until the gravy thickens up,and then served over the biscuits( its not a healthy dish).Usually considered a breakfast food,but can be eaten anytime.To really do it up,fry up a couple of eggs for over top of the whole thing.

I make drop biscuits from Jiffy Mix (you can also use Bisquick) and milk. Mix together until thick & sticky, then drop onto a baking sheet with a spoon and bake 'em at 400 degrees until done (about 12 minutes).

I leave the sausage in the pot when I make the gravy. I add 2-3 pats of butter to the grease, then flour to make a roux. After that it's slowly whisking in a pint of light cream, then milk. Let the gravy thicken up before adding the milk, then add it slowly, again letting it thicken before adding more until you get the consistency you want. Add salt to taste.

Ladle over biscuits. Like you, I like eggs with them too, only I prefer scrambled, placed beside the biscuits and gravy over all. Hot black coffee to wash it down with.

And if you ever want to see gamers really go at it over pronouncing a word, ask any group of WH40K players how to pronounce "Chimera". After asking, grab some popcorn and enjoy the show. :)

I've heard plenty of people in Britain pronounce Nike to rhyme with bike.

Doesn't Nike rhyme with bike? I can't imagine how else you'd say it.

@Martin Rapier, try out 'Nigh-kee'

@TKindred, you Americans are crazy. An oven that gets up to 400 degrees, that's just absurd. Mine only goes to about 220…

vive la différence‎

heh… sorry, it's in degrees Fahrenheit vice Celcius.

And yes….. it's pronounced "nigh kee" by everyone I know, including the store that sells that brand of sports apparel.

Many have tried to correct me when saying Genre. To which I replied "That is just what I said, Jen-Your". OH how I love the look on their faces.

I thought Nike was presently addressed as knee Kaye.. I think that is how the statue in the louvre is addressed?

If some modern company uses it incorrectly then… well I am not worried.

@skinkmasterreturns – Having lived in North Carolina in the past for several years, I have had the opportunity to experience some truly excellent southern-style biscuits. I also like English scones, but I agree that they are definitely NOT the same thing. BTW, I much prefer English scones to most American-made ones, but that's another story entirely.

If you need to have some southern-style biscuits while in England, I would recommend looking for a Popeye's or KFC franchise. While admittedly not in the same league as good home-made southern biscuits, they are probably the best you are likely to find on that side of the Pond.

And don't get me started on the subject of hushpuppies!

Cheers,
Scott

I thought Makedon was the American way of saying Macedon, after listening to that chap from Sandhurst on Time commanders. I happily, and humbly, stand corrected.

If the scholars wanted it pronounced "Makedon", why did they put a "c" in it? USUALLY, a "c" in front of an "e" results in a soft sound.
Same with "Mycenaean".

I was just contacted by the Greek Embassy and informed unless it is pronounced correctly you immediately have to turn in all of your miniatures (in particular the painted ones) to a designated representative.

As a duly designated representative, I will provided those of you who have failed to comply with my mailing address so I may take possession of your gaming contraband.

Μόνο οι νεκροί έχουν δει το τέλος του πολέμου.