Pronunciation of "Animagus"

[Schlobin at aol.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Jen Faulkner <jfaulkne at e...> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001 linman6868 at a... wrote:
> 
> > The subject heading ought to tell you what I'm on about.  How do 
you 
> > pronounce "Animagus"?  I'm asking because I just recently looked 
up 
> > the word "magus" in the dictionary and it has a long 'a', as 
> > in "bagel."  *snerk*  But I'd been pronouncing "Animagus", rather 
> > awkwardly, with two deep 'a's as in "father."  So what's 
correct?  Or 
> > do we know?
> 
> According to the Scholastic site,
> http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/books/pronunciation/play.htm, 
it's
> "An-i-MAYJ'us."  
> 
> The first a is short (as in 'cat' or 'apple')  due to the short 
vowel in
> the Latin 'animal'.  
> 
> Perhaps I'm just being dense, but the long a is baffling me, since
> 'magus' in Latin has a short a.  (The alpha in Greek 'ma/gos', 
however,
> may be long? *stares at the online LSJ entry: [a^]* But 
etymologically
> I'm sure 'magus' is a Latin and not a Greek borrowing anyway.)  I
> suppose there is a connection with the long a of 'mage', since the 
other
> words in the family ('magic', 'magi') have a short a -- French
> influence?  Either there is simple analogical change at work (more
> likely, IMO) or a different etymological history than 'magic' and
> 'magi'.
> 
> (I'd like to check the OED but I'm away from my computer and so not
> able to use Rutgers' OED account.  Anyone?)
> 
> I suspect analogical change from 'mage' (or from 'magic' or 'magi') 
is
> also to be counted responsible for the soft 'g', since it would
> otherwise be a hard g (coming before a 'u').  Here, I'd be not at 
all
> surprised if the Scholastic site were wrong.
> 
> HTH!
> 
> --jen :)
> 



Well, I fear I will never trust the Scholastic site -- it's quiz 
stated that Hagrid was in Hufflepuff!

I assumed it would be the Latin pronunciation since JKR uses so much 
Latin

Animagus -- two short as and hard g.......

but I'm often wrong

Susan