Pronunciation

[Meg Therese Elizabeth-Rose, but Meg for short... I LUV HARRY POTTER!!!! <megrose_13@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52713

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tom Wall <thomasmwall at y...>" 
<thomasmwall at y...> wrote:
> Animagus = 'An-i-MAHG-us'
> Animagi = 'An-i-MAJ-aye'
> 
> My reasoning on this one was simply because of the Latin - to my 
> knowledge, there was no soft 'g' in the Roman phoenetic scheme, but 
> then again, 'An-i-MAH-gee' sounds dumb, IMHO, although that's what 
it 
> would be if we were technical with the Latin sounds. Oh, that, and 
to 
> my knowledge, 'mage' is an English conversion that followed the 
> Latin, which would have been 'MAH-gus.'
> 
> 
> Crucio = 'CRU-see-oh,' 'cause I thought a single 'c' followed by a 
> vowel in Latin is definitely a soft sound, i.e. Cicero = 'SIS-er-
oh,' 
> and not 'Kick-er-oh.' The 'KAI-zar' in Caesar had something to do 
> with the double vowels, as far as I can remember.


Actually, I have taken Latin for 3 years now and there is actually no 
hard g (as in bridge or something) in the language.  This can be seen 
in words like Graecia (Greece) with the G sounding like it does in 
Greece.  I personally pronounce animagus an-uh-MAG-us and animagi as 
an-uh-MAG-eye, even though the i would be ee if you were sticking 
with true Latin pronunciation....

As for the C, in Classical Latin, it is always, always a hard c as in 
crack.  Cicero was indeed pronounced Kick-ero and Caesar was Ky-zar 
and it wasn't until the language began to transform into "Church 
Latin" that the c's became soft.