I was listening to a book on tape in my car yesterday and there was a mention of Isaac Newton’s book Principia Mathematica. It’s one of those things I’ve read many times but never heard pronounced before.
And the reader pronounced it prin-chip-ia. Now mentally I’ve always thought of it as prin-sip-ia on the basis of how I pronounce words like principle. But it’s a Latin word so I could see the possibility it was pronounced prin-kip-ia. But prin-chip-ia? I hadn’t even considered that.
So is prin-chip-ia the correct pronunciation or is the person who read it thus misguided?
“Prinkipia” is probably pretty close to how an ancient Roman would have pronounced it, but “princhipia” is probably closer to how Newton would have pronounced it.
In classical Latin, ‘c’ was always pronounced like ‘k’, so it’d be prin-kip-ia. In modern church Latin, ‘c’ is often pronounced like ‘ch’, so it could be ‘prin-chip-ia’. ‘prin-sip-ia’ is definitely wrong.
Actually, any pronunciation of Principia Mathematically is wrong, wrt to the OP. That is the title of a book written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.
Newton’s book is tilted: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
I don’t know about that. We can accept that term as having become part of the English language and properly apply English pronunciation rules to it. I see no reason, certainly in informal speech, to adhere to Latin pronunciation rules.
Interesting. The other thread seemed to conclude that “Prin-chip-ia” was the worst of all worlds. Personally, I’m in the “prin-KIP-ia” or “prin-SIP-ia” camp.
I agree. I cannot ever pronounce it that way because while ‘prin-si-pia’ sounds lofty and intellectual (like ‘principle’) ‘Prinkipia’ sounds like some kind of magical fairy land filled will pink unicorns or something, just south of Narnia…
