# Spell My Name With An Eth: Why is 'Odin' pronounced like it is? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 20, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796 "2012-06-20T22:56:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/41 "2012-06-22T03:27:23Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I agree completely with **HeyHomie**. In fact, one could argue that use of a specialized code in which just a handful of dopers is fluent can be seen as a violation of the SDMB rules on foreign language use. Yes, it’s a stupid mannerism, used by those who want to conceal knowledge and promote ignorance so that they can sound smart. No doubt it is useful among experts, but there’s no reason to use it elsewise. In fact, the fact that Wikipedia has turned to this POS is one reason why I find it increasingly useless for some things. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/42 "2012-06-22T04:30:05Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > May I raise a point? > > Not just here on the SDMB, but also Wikipedia and several other places on the net, I often see pronunciation rendered in those ridiculous dictionary symbols. They’re all but useless; I haven’t opened a dictionary in probably two decades. > > Can we render pronunciation in a more meaningful and simple way? Instead of “ˈoʊdɨn” how about “OH-din” or whatever? > > Thanks. > [@Alessan](#): > > I agree completely with **HeyHomie**. In fact, one could argue that use of a specialized code in which just a handful of dopers is fluent can be seen as a violation of the SDMB rules on foreign language use. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, it’s a stupid mannerism, used by those who want to conceal knowledge and promote ignorance so that they can sound smart. No doubt it is useful among experts, but there’s no reason to use it elsewise. In fact, the fact that Wikipedia has turned to this POS is one reason why I find it increasingly useless for some things. [Moderating] I’m assuming that you guys are joking with these remarks. But on the off chance that someone might take you seriously, let’s drop these kinds of comments. They are not really helpful in GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**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:** [June 22, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/43 "2012-06-22T04:52:43Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I’m assuming that you guys are joking with these remarks. Maybe I’m tone deaf, but I don’t hear any irony in those statements. IPA is not a stupid mannerism when talking in pronunciation threads. I don’t get why some people think the thrust is obfuscation; it isn’t. Like I said, I usually do both IPA and some simplified English version, but using the English version alone has caused problems in past threads because of dialectical differences. I’ve even come across such problems in language books. I had an English-Hungarian textbook that rendered the pronunciation of _kösönöm_ (“thank you”) as KUR-sur-nurm. (Or read post five [here](http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g274887-i263-k4899277-Do_s_and_Don_ts_in_Budapest-Budapest.html) that shows the same rendering.) I did not know how the heck anyone got KUR-sur-nurm out of a word that does not have any "r"s in Hungarian (either written or pronounced), until it dawned on me, years later, that the book must have been written by a speaker of a non-rhotic accent. Sure enough, the textbook was published in the UK, so those "r"s would not have been voiced. We have the same problem with US accents, where “caught” and “cot” could rhyme, or where “Mary,” marry," and “merry” all contain the same vowel sound, so IPA is well-suited to disambiguating just exactly what is being talked about. You don’t need to be any sort of expert to use and appreciate IPA. It’s been great for me to learn how words are supposed to be pronounced in foreign languages, as it better describes the sounds than ham-fisted approximations like “kur-sur-nurm.” ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/44 "2012-06-22T04:59:21Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No doubt it is useful among experts, but there’s no reason to use it elsewise. What an odd statement. Surely, the very reasons that it is useful among experts are the same reasons that it would be useful for anyone… Similarly with the derision of IPA as “dictionary symbols”. Dictionaries have no desire to obfuscate… The ones which use IPA do so for good reason, because they’ve found pseudo-phonetic rendering to not be very good at consistently conveying pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/45 "2012-06-22T05:01:55Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > [Moderating] > > I’m assuming that you guys are joking with these remarks. But on the off chance that someone might take you seriously, let’s drop these kinds of comments. They are not really helpful in GQ. > > Colibri > General Questions Moderator I was making an exaggeration for humors sake, yes. Ok, somebody start a IMHO thread! ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/46 "2012-06-22T05:04:07Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > OK, so when was it pronounced with a /ð/ to begin with? It sure looks like \*Wōdanaz was pronounced with a /d/ in that position. Linguists conclude, probably correctly, that \*Wōdanaz was pronounced with a /d/, but unlike \*Wōdanaz, which is a linguistics construct (hence the \*), we have writings from the people who pronounced Oðin with a /ð/. The old Norse weren’t restrained by “proper spelling”, but wrote what they spoke, and they used a ð, as the Icelanders still do. > **[Hávamál](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5vam%C3%A5l)** > > Hávamál (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}English: /ˈhɔːvəˌmɔːl/ HAW-və-mawl; Old Norse: Hávamál,\[note 1\] classical pron. \[ˈhɒːwaˌmɒːl\], Modern Icelandic pron. \[ˈhauːvaˌmauːl̥\], ‘Words of Hávi \[the High One\]’) is presented as a single poem in the Codex Regius, a collection of Old Norse poems from the Viking age. A scholarly estima... For when it changed to, and when it changed from (in languages other than Icelandic), /ð/, you need an actual linguist. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/47 "2012-06-22T05:06:13Z")
To get back to the OP: The Proto-Germanic \*Wōdanaz survived in Old Norse as Oðinn, Old English as Wōden, and Old High German as Wuotan. So in English, there was already a tradition of referring to the god as Woden. Imagine that you, an English reader who doesn’t speak Old Norse, come across a word spelled O - Ð - I - N - N in your book, and you know it’s another way of saying “Woden.” Which is more likely: you research the correct pronunication of the edh in Norse, or you pronounce it like the closest English letter which just happens to be the one in the obviously related synonym? ---
**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:** [June 22, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/48 "2012-06-22T05:28:58Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Maybe I’m tone deaf, but I don’t hear any irony in those statements. IPA is not a stupid mannerism when talking in pronunciation threads. I don’t get why some people think the thrust is obfuscation; it isn’t. Because that’s the result. I know IPA, as I learned it for singing. But I know better than to assume most other people know it. You do well when you include both, as that helps everyone. But those who just use one do result in _de facto_ obfuscation. Even Wikipedia uses [two](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key) [different](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English) systems. It takes most people much longer than five minutes to learn an entirely new transcription system. And what purpose does it serve to learn it when they have exactly one question on the subject? It just means they’ve spent time learning something that they’ll hardly ever use. It’s the height of hubris to think that everyone even wants to know everything you know. And those of you who push IPA might want to fight your own ignorance about it. While usually identified as a fricative, [/h/](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_glottal_fricative) is often not realized as such, instead meaning to add an aspiration (voiceless articulation) to the front of a subsequent vowel. In assuming that it is a real fricative or that it is an unvoiced consonant, you guys are making the same mistake you accuse others of who don’t use IPA: assuming your accent is the only one. I was previously going to say that, if you’re well-versed enough in pronunciation to use IPA, then you’re also well versed enough to know which English sounds are ambiguous and thus to not use them. But maybe not–perhaps we do have a lot of people who took only five minutes to learn it and thus actually believe the hype about it being completely unambiguous. The ambiguities are fewer, but they still exist. There’s a reason why Wikipedia has a separate IPA guide for every language. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/49 "2012-06-22T09:27:54Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Something like either “ˈoʊdɨn (approximately OH-din)” or “OH-din (more precisely ˈoʊdɨn)” would help those of us playing along at home. We might even accidentally learn something :). It wouldn’t help, since people with different accents would pronounce OH-din differently. People with different accents pronounce oh differently, you see. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/50 "2012-06-22T11:44:58Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It wouldn’t help, since people with different accents would pronounce OH-din differently. People with different accents pronounce oh differently, you see. It most certainly would _help_! Cripes. I have no clue how to pronounce “ˈoʊdɨn”, or IPA in general. Some of us don’t know IPA, you see. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/51 "2012-06-22T12:00:11Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > It most certainly would _help_! Cripes. I have no clue how to pronounce “ˈoʊdɨn”, or IPA in general. Some of us don’t know IPA, you see. You can learn IPA by the end of the day and you’ll know it forever. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/52 "2012-06-22T12:34:03Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You can learn IPA by the end of the day and you’ll know it forever. Or not, I was taught something like that in 9th grade and I can’t even remember wth the terms are supposed to mean… I remember there was “voiced” and “unvoiced” and “fricative” and “plosive”, but I can’t define them any more than my brother the finance guy can explain a Redox reaction (I’m not sure whether it was IPA or not, plus for some reason our Spanish/English dictionary used a different set). That doesn’t mean it’s not useful; it’s more useful than English phonics… even without being able to remember which symbol stands for which sound, I can look at several words written in IPA and tell which sounds they share/do not share, whereas I can’t do the same with English phonics. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/53 "2012-06-22T12:55:55Z")
It’s not at all necessary to know the technical terms, like that /θ/ is a sign for a voiceless dental fricative, just what sound it represents. Hell, I have to look them upmost of the time to make sure I get it right. Now, knowing the technical name might help in figuring out how a sound you’ve never heard before is supposed to sound, but it’s not necessary for making IPA useful. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/54 "2012-06-22T13:23:09Z")
I sympathise with people who don’t like to see IPA symbols, but it is simply not possible to communicate effectively, in writing, about pronunciation by using English-sound approximations invented on the fly, or terms like “hard c”, “long a”, etc., which mean different things to different people. Surely this point has been proven by example many times in SDMB threads? In this very thread, one of the sounds under discussion (it’s even mentioned in the title) is the “eth” sound ð. The potential for confusion is evident. There is an alternative for rendering English sounds, which may be slightly less scary looking, as it only uses letters and symbols available on the keyboard: [SAMPA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_Assessment_Methods_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/55 "2012-06-22T13:42:31Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Linguists conclude, probably correctly, that \*Wōdanaz was pronounced with a /d/, but unlike \*Wōdanaz, which is a linguistics construct (hence the \*), we have writings from the people who pronounced Oðin with a /ð/. The old Norse weren’t restrained by “proper spelling”, but wrote what they spoke, and they used a ð, as the Icelanders still do. > > [Hávamál - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5vam%C3%A5l) > > For when it changed to, and when it changed from (in languages other than Icelandic), /ð/, you need an actual linguist. OK, fair enough. > [@Dr.Drake](#): > > To get back to the OP: > > The Proto-Germanic \*Wōdanaz survived in Old Norse as Oðinn, Old English as Wōden, and Old High German as Wuotan. So in English, there was already a tradition of referring to the god as Woden. Imagine that you, an English reader who doesn’t speak Old Norse, come across a word spelled O - Ð - I - N - N in your book, and you know it’s another way of saying “Woden.” Which is more likely: you research the correct pronunication of the edh in Norse, or you pronounce it like the closest English letter which just happens to be the one in the obviously related synonym? This certainly makes sense. And, for all of you who are IPA-perplexed: The first sound in the word ‘This’ when you say it at a normal volume (not whispering) is the /ð/ sound we’re all talking about. For contrast, the first sound in the word ‘thin’ is the /θ/ sound it contrasts most closely with. If you pronounce ‘This’ and ‘Thin’ with your hand held to your throat, you should be able to feel your vocal cords vibrate from the very beginning for ‘This’ but not for ‘Thin’, especially if you draw out both of those words’ respective ‘th’ sounds. This means the /ð/ sound is ‘voiced’ whereas the /θ/ sound is ‘unvoiced’. English rarely distinguishes between words based _only_ on whether they have a /ð/ or a /θ/ in the same position; one case where English does is in ‘thy’ /ðaɪ/ versus ‘thigh’ /θaɪ/, at least in my variety of English. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2012, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/56 "2012-06-22T13:54:00Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > English rarely distinguishes between words based _only_ on whether they have a /ð/ or a /θ/ in the same position; one case where English does is in ‘thy’ /ðaɪ/ versus ‘thigh’ /θaɪ/, at least in my variety of English. This is true; I’ve listed a few more examples in a post upthread. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/57 "2012-06-22T17:09:30Z")
Ah, [right here in today’s thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=157196) is an example of where writing out the English pronunciation is confusing: My science professors have said “man-del-brawt” (as in bratwurst) “Brawt” does not sound like the first syllable of “bratwurst.” At least not in my dialect. “AW” to me is unambigously the sound you make when a baby does something cute, like “AWWWWWW, look at that.” I have never heard anyone say brawt-wurst, so I assume the OP is talking about a sound like “ah” or what we called a short “o” in kindergarten (in American English.) Or does the OP say “brawt-wurst”? I really don’t know how either word is pronounced by the OP. Or, you could just use the symbols, /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ or SAMPA /A/ and /O/ and avoid all such confusion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/58 "2016-08-08T19:50:18Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Ah, [right here in today’s thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=157196) is an example of where writing out the English pronunciation is confusing: > > My science professors have said “man-del-brawt” (as in bratwurst) > > “Brawt” does not sound like the first syllable of “bratwurst.” At least not in my dialect. “AW” to me is unambigously the sound you make when a baby does something cute, like “AWWWWWW, look at that.” I have never heard anyone say brawt-wurst, so I assume the OP is talking about a sound like “ah” or what we called a short “o” in kindergarten (in American English.) Or does the OP say “brawt-wurst”? I really don’t know how either word is pronounced by the OP. > > Or, you could just use the symbols, /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ or SAMPA /A/ and /O/ and avoid all such confusion. Reviving this thread (after a link directed me back) to note that this very post shows the uselessness of a term like “short o.” To me, the “short _O_” sound is a low, back, rounded vowel [ɒ]. Nothing like the “ah” sound. And it’s also different from the “aw” sound [ɔ]. So what to you is two phonemes is to me four: father [faðɚ] (“ah”) bother [bɑðɚ] caught [kɔt]/awl [ɔl] (“aw”) cot [kɒt]/all [ɒl] (“short O”) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/59 "2016-08-09T18:43:09Z")
Like Frank Zappa’s Rance Mohammitz, Odin has many names. Each one probably has multiple ways to say it. Near as I can figure, all of them are correct. Odin, like the top gods in some other myth systems, is a busy and very randy guy. In Richard Wagner’s _Ring_ operas, Wotan (pronounced Votan) has a whole lot of children. Some were born to his wife, who is fricative, and a passel of others with human women and supernatural gals, scattered thither and yon. In the _Ring_ cycle, it seems that half the cast were fathered or grandfathered by Wotan. ---
**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:** [August 9, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796/60 "2016-08-09T19:11:38Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Reviving this thread (after a link directed me back) to note that this very post shows the uselessness of a term like “short o.” Yep, absolutely agreed. We learned “long” and “short” sounds for all the vowels here in grammar school. (I wonder if they still teach them that way.) Years later we figured out that vowels sounds don’t necessarily fit neatly into those categories (like where does “aw” /ɔ/ fit?) and then years later figured out that they don’t even correspond to the same sounds in different dialects! And then years later I figured out that “long” and “short” vowel sounds, when speaking about other languages, often/usually refers to the length of the vowel. Just confusing terminology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spell-my-name-with-an-eth-why-is-odin-pronounced-like-it-is/625796.md?page=4)