Yeah but the guy in that YouTube tutorial seemed like he was implying that everybody should pronounce it correctly according to its language origin 🤷🏼♀️
Sometimes when a word gets borrowed from another language, the pronunciation comes along, too. Sometimes not. Every dictionary here says we aren't using the Nahuatl pronunciation. It isn't a thing, no matter what some guy on YouTube is saying.
I do prefer pronouncing axolotl phonetically to rhyme with Aristotle.
But I guess this kinda makes me curious about the Nahuatl language, why would they use the roman alphabet if they're just gonna change the pronunciation of every letter into some unrelated nonsense 😵💫
They didn't use the Roman alphabet. They used hieroglyphs. The Spanish were the ones who came up with that spelling.
Now, why did the Spanish decide that X should make a "sh" sound? I don't know, but I can guess. I don't think that the "sh" sound is present in Spanish, so they decided to use a letter that they didn't use much (or at all) to represent it: X. But in English, X inside of a word makes a "ks" sound, so when the word was read by English speakers, they said "acks-oh-lawtl".
I just pulled that out of my ass, though.
ETA: Okay, did a little research. It looks like the letter X is used in Spanish, and it used to have a "sh" sound, but it changed over time.
18 Comments
MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub · 35 pts · 281d
True, cause that's not how you pronounce axolotl
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 281d
Axolotl doesn't rhyme with Aristotle?
CaptSatelliteJack@lemy.lol · 14 pts · 281d
TIL
YoFrodo@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 281d
but you just pronounced it the way I do
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 281d
kindenough@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 281d
Axoloteles?
MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 281d
Pretty sure that's Aristotle. But apparently the plural in Nahuatl is axolomeh so it doesn't work either
kindenough@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 281d
Ἀριστοτλ? His name is Ἀριστοτέλης. Totélēsly different...
MicrowavedTea@infosec.pub · 4 pts · 281d
Haha well the English have already butchered that name with the new spelling. They can have their pronunciation
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 279d
Not how that works... Things change between languages. It makes perfect sense for common English pronunciation.
Hell things change in the same language.
Language is based on common use.
SARGE@startrek.website · 8 pts · 281d
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 281d
Ah-SHOW-lot on Aristotle.
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 280d
Not in English it ain't.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 280d
Yeah but the guy in that YouTube tutorial seemed like he was implying that everybody should pronounce it correctly according to its language origin 🤷🏼♀️
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 279d
Sometimes when a word gets borrowed from another language, the pronunciation comes along, too. Sometimes not. Every dictionary here says we aren't using the Nahuatl pronunciation. It isn't a thing, no matter what some guy on YouTube is saying.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 278d
I do prefer pronouncing axolotl phonetically to rhyme with Aristotle.
But I guess this kinda makes me curious about the Nahuatl language, why would they use the roman alphabet if they're just gonna change the pronunciation of every letter into some unrelated nonsense 😵💫
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 278d
They didn't use the Roman alphabet. They used hieroglyphs. The Spanish were the ones who came up with that spelling.
Now, why did the Spanish decide that X should make a "sh" sound? I don't know, but I can guess. I don't think that the "sh" sound is present in Spanish, so they decided to use a letter that they didn't use much (or at all) to represent it: X. But in English, X inside of a word makes a "ks" sound, so when the word was read by English speakers, they said "acks-oh-lawtl".
I just pulled that out of my ass, though.
ETA: Okay, did a little research. It looks like the letter X is used in Spanish, and it used to have a "sh" sound, but it changed over time.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 277d
It's not the x= sh that bothers me. It's the "lotl" = "lot" that makes no sense.
Karlid@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 279d
Gecko on a Grecco?
falseWhite@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 279d
RmDebArc_5@piefed.zip · 5 pts · 279d
Axolotl on Aristotle