# How to pronounce Principia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 9, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513 "2013-11-09T16:21:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/61 "2013-11-12T23:13:48Z")
So when did that pronunciation become the norm for Latin in England? Sometime during the 17th century? Because in the 1580s, as noted above, when Giordano Bruno was giving lectures at Oxford (in Latin, of course), his Italianate pronunciation of the Latin _c_ as /tʃ/ drew a comment from a Latin-speaking English scholar (George Abbot) on how that sounded foreign to English ears. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/62 "2013-11-13T00:40:46Z")
It’s Prinkipia, but I think pushing too heavily for that to be “correct” is silly, because I’ll wager than most people probably don’t pronounce the vowels correctly. Weren’t all Latin "i"s traditionally (to our knowledge) pronounced like the IPA /i/? And all "a"s like /a/? I think most American English speakers would use /ɪ/ for the first two vowels, and the final “a” as /ʌ/ even when trying to use the “more correct” prinkipia. I’m not certain I’m correct on this (and please correct me if I’m wrong), but if I am, it seems a bit silly to hammer home not saying “prɪnsɪpiʌ” when “prɪnkɪpiʌ” is almost equally incorrect from a pronunciation-nazi point of view. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/63 "2013-11-13T00:56:13Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Excuse you, I don’t give a shit if you want to say prinkipia, princhipia, prinsipia or throatwarbler mangrove. What I care about is people arbitrarily assigning value judgments to equivalent pronunciations of something. And what I was attempting to point out, although apparently not as well as I thought, was that anglicization is very much not limited to SAE and if you think so, that’s really telling. I’m not assigning value judgments to equivalent pronunciations; I’ve made it as clear as I can that prinkipia, princhipia and prinsipia all have different derivations but are all equally acceptable. What’s not acceptable is attempting to valididate “prinsipia” with the claim that _principia_ is an English word, because (a) it isn’t, and (b) the claim implies that, while prinsipia is acceptable, prinkipia and princhipia are not. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/64 "2013-11-13T01:36:25Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > So when did that pronunciation become the norm for Latin in England? Sometime during the 17th century? Because in the 1580s, as noted above, when Giordano Bruno was giving lectures at Oxford (in Latin, of course), his Italianate pronunciation of the Latin _c_ as /tʃ/ drew a comment from a Latin-speaking English scholar (George Abbot) on how that sounded foreign to English ears. Good point. I think we’re into ecclesiastical politics here. In the period we are talking of here - sixteenth century - there is basically no distinction between ecclesiastical Latin and the lingua franca of scholars. And, as already noted, “ch” for ‘c’ before ‘i’ or ‘e’ is standard in ecclesiastical Latin. So why would anyone express surprise at a “ch” pronunciation? The answer is, I think, that to say that “ch” is standard in ecclesiastical Latin is an oversimplification. It’s standard in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, etc. But in the Germany, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, it’s closer to “ts”, not “ch”. So, “tsentrum”, not “chentrum” for _centrum_. “Inditsia”, not “indichia”. And so forth. Now, in the sixteenth century, the linguistic divide maps reasonably well to the religious divides of the Reformation. Catholics, mostly, say “ch”. Lutherans and Anabaptists, mostly, say “ts”. Calvinists are all over the place; in Geneva they say “ch”, but in the Netherlands, “ts”. And in England? Well, the Church of England has been all over the place too. Catholic (but not Roman) under Henry. Very Protestant under Edward VI. Catholic again under Mary. Trying to steer a middle course under Elizabeth but, basically, Protestant with mostly Lutheran influences, some Calvinist. Anabaptists definitely not flavour of the month. This is the environment into which Bruno comes. And Bruno’s a suspect character. He’s a Dominican friar - an unorthodox Dominican friar, admittedly, but the heresy charges and the burning at the stake are still some years away. Plus, he’s under the protection of the French embassy, which automatically casts a shadow. And he’s looking for a teaching post at Oxford. (In the event, he doesn’t get it.) My wild guess is that the comment on Bruno’s pronunciation is not so much drawing attention to the fact that he doesn’t speak Latin like an Englishman, as to the fact that he doesn’t speak Latin like a Protestant. The English church’s overseas theological contacts and influences at this time - at least, the approved ones - were with “ts”-speakers, not with Italian friars. What about English speakers of Latin? Until the reformation, the English church was very much influenced by, and connected with, the French church. The Norman conquest only reinforces this. Church Latin, as spoken in England, employed the “ch” pronunciation. It’s possible - this is just conjecture - that in the late sixteenth century some speakers are adopting the “ts” pronunciation, either to mark themselves as Protestant, or in some sense “modern”, or simply because in post-Reformation England they are more exposed to “ts”-speakers than to “ch”-speakers. And this too might provide some explanation for derision of Bruno’s pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/65 "2013-11-14T04:15:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I can accept this argument when people use it to say the word should be pronounced prinkipia. It’s the princhipia argument I find weak. To paraphrase your own question, why would you pronounce a Latin word as though it was Italian? Because, as is said MULTIPLE TIMES in this thread, that’s how the original author pronounced the word. It is a basic concept that he who names something determines its pronunciation. If my name were Kara, for example, and I pronounce it care-a, you don’t get to call me car-a. And it’s not the Italian pronunciation. It’s the later Latin pronunciation. Latin was continually in use for a long period and its pronunciation changed over time. Only recently have we decided to try to use Classical Latin pronunciations. The only argument that can be made for “prinsipia” would be the descriptivism argument that it is the most common pronunciation. But you have yet to establish this, and what posts do address the concept say that the people who regularly use the word do not use that pronunciation. I do not get why you think that the fact you have come up with your own logical rules that say it should be pronounced a certain way makes that way correct. While there are patterns in language, actual usage always takes precedence. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/66 "2013-11-14T04:21:48Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Because, as is said MULTIPLE TIMES in this thread, that’s how the original author pronounced the word. This is the curious thing. Do we know this for a fact? I’ve been looking through past Straight Dope threads on this, and I haven’t been able to find a definitive answer. [Here’s another thread to throw out there.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=100736) I mean, I personally don’t know. But I don’t think we’ve quite settled on it being fact quite yet. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/67 "2013-11-14T11:21:04Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Good point. > > I think we’re into ecclesiastical politics here. Interesting and well-thought-out answer. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/68 "2013-11-14T14:41:27Z")
Lets I contribute to any ignorance here, I should mention that when I said that Newton probably pronounced it as “ch”, that was a guess on my part. My knowledge of Latin and its history is not nearly as extensive as that of some folks here. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/69 "2013-11-14T18:22:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Lets I contribute to any ignorance here, I should mention that when I said that Newton probably pronounced it as “ch”, that was a guess on my part. My knowledge of Latin and its history is not nearly as extensive as that of some folks here. If we didn’t have your earlier post (Newton probably used [tʃ]), the username/post combo here would be confusing, Kronos! ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2013, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513/70 "2013-11-15T02:01:52Z")
I’d go with Prinkipia…or Throatwarbler Mangrove. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-pronounce-principia/673513.md?page=3)