"Poh-tay-toe? Poh-tah-toe?" Topic

So is it BIZ-an-teen, BIZ-an-tine, Biz-AN-teen, Biz-AN-tine, BYE-zan-teen, or BYE-zan-tine. "Tine" being pronounced with a long "eye" sound. Same goes for Byzantium. And yes, I know that they are technically "Romans"…not the point here.

It' all Greek to me?

Pah-tate-a

tay-ters

So is it BIZ-an-teen, BIZ-an-tine, Biz-AN-teen, Biz-AN-tine, BYE-zan-teen, or BYE-zan-tine. "Tine" being pronounced with a long "eye" sound.

Funny…. that's how I had instinctively pronounced it for years though that could just be a product of my dialect(?)

Kind Regards

Do you drop the 'e' when you make it plural?

I don't think I'm consistent. And I'm not bothered by any variation.

It's Βυζαντινή Αυτοκρατορία.

Peas, no medieval spuds. Oh The Roman Empire…

I say BIZ-an-teen but no idea if it's correct or not

The original Greek doesn't always help because we have this odd tendency to translate the Greek upsilon ("u") into a "y" in English. Never could figure this out. I too say BIZ-an-teen but I suspect the correct transliteration is BYE-zan-teen.

Am I correct that the Byzantine Empire wasn't referred to as Byzantine until so named by historians after its fall..and that inhabitants referred to themselves simply as Romaioi (Romans).

A BIZ-an-teen army.

But bye-ZAN-tine scheming.

I told you I was inconsistent.

One of my old profs was a serious Eastern Roman Empire fan, and and it was biz-ANT-ium the city, but the BIZ-an-tine Empire--or bureaucracy, come to that.

My understanding is the ChrisBrantley is quite right: it's not what they called themselves. But it's beside the point, Chris: the English word for a country, city or people is not necessarily what they use for themselves. We don't talk about the Deutsch overrunning France, for instance, or vacation in Wien or Roma.

One of my old profs was a serious Eastern Roman Empire fan, and and it was biz-ANT-ium the city, but the BIZ-an-tine Empire--or bureaucracy, come to that.

Accent on the ante-penultimate (second to last) syllable.

And for what it's worth, I use "teen" for the last syllable.

I would say:
"BYZ-an-teen", where the "y" is spelled as in "mystic"

This would all be much easier if we all knew the international phonetic alphabet.
So we didn't have to explain what type of Y or A we're talking about.

Again it is a English VS Yankee thing

According to my research US English prefers BIZanTEEN English English BIZEanTEEN

Press on the speaker icons on these links to hear examples

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I blame Edward Gibbon…

I say tay!

Pronunciation from the Cambridge dictionary web site.

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My error. It was BIZ-an-teen for the bureaucracy.

And I blame George III.

R O M A N

Most school kids think the Goth teens are way cooler than the Byzan teens… ;-)

You have got it in Greek [see above] so can work out the modern or classical Greek pronounciation foundalis.com/lan/grkalpha.htm

@Marcus Brutus:

Back in the good old days, Greek Y made an "oo" sound; in Modern Greek it makes an "ee" sound. In Classical and Hellenistic Greek, however, it made an intermediate sound that doesn't exist in Modern English, like French u or German ü, that didn't exist in Latin either, so the Romans simply imported the Greek letter for the Greek sound*. Centuries later, English inherited most of its writing habits from Latin, including the conventions for writing Greek names and words in Latin letters.

* Funnily enough, Greek Y has no less than four descendants in the modern Latin alphabet; appart from Y, adopted directly from Greek during the later Republic, U, V and W all derive from Classical Latin V, which in turn derives Greek Y via Etruscan, which adopted it way back when it still made an "oo" sound in Greek.

Of all the people bringing up the Greek pronunciation, I'm surprised nobody has pointed out that that last "e" would not be silent, so you might be pronouncing it (based on my American accent) Biz-ann-tea-nay.

I'm not seriously suggesting that anybody does or should pronounce it that way.

Potato's