How do you say Aether? (Poll)

[dragonsdemesne]

dimshield

[Fippe94]

Ätherrr.

Just like this, we have Ä in swedish too. Took the 'cat' option.

[dawn to dusk]

I have always said eether and have been curious of this for a while. I'm glad I have been saying it right ^_^

[eljoemo]

fyi, in the recent Fire Emblem games with Ike (GC and Wii + Super Smash Bros. Brawl) and Chrom/Lucina (3DS), the game vocalizes the skill "Great Aether"/"Aether" as ay-ther.

http://youtu.be/4iSpl5iCu0k?t=8m10s

Personally it sounds like Ee-ther to me. All other sources say Ee-ther. The only other use of the 'ae' I can think of is Julius Caesar, which is pronounced See-sar.

So far half of the community are voting Ay-ther as the common pronunciation.

[Annele]

When I saw Aether for the first time, I assumed (quite rightly) that it was a different spelling of ether. However, unknown at the time, I was pronouncing ether wrong. If you watched my Elements Guide for Noobs!!!11one, you may have noticed I tried to pronounce it correctly, but switch back near the end. (I think I say the 'th' wrong as well - 'th' as in 'the'.)

[Higurashi]

Aithēr. This is consistent with Swedish and, interestingly, Ancient Greek from which it comes originally (before Latin). I've always had an interest in etymology and I'm a firm believer of pronouncing terms in their original language so as not to lose any meaning or context. This is especially important in literature. A book is always truest to itself in its own language.

[xyan]

Aithēr. This is consistent with Swedish and, interestingly, Ancient Greek from which it comes originally (before Latin). I've always had an interest in etymology.

this would explain how the video posted of SSBBrawl sounded like "ether": this enunciation by higs qualifies as a diphthong. that is your vocabulary word for the day, go look it up. (with my knowledge of music, i know about diphthongs from diction of vocal music)

another example: most dialects pronounce "fire" with 2 vowel sounds on the i.

[ElementalDearWatson]

It's "ee-ther" in the same way that "daemon" is pronounced identically to "demon".

[Jyiber]

dimshield

Well then I guess I'm the only person who'll admit to reading it as eh-ther in my head, even though I very well know it's ee-ther. I have seen a few documentaries on theoretical physics in my day, so... yeah... I remember the dead theories...


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aether

[antiaverage]

Dictionary says:
|ˈēTHər|

so that's "Ee - ther (sounds like Key)" according to your poll

I can understand people saying "Ay - ther (sounds like Hay)" but here, read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86

Swedish has nothing to do with this word, although they did adopt the Latin diphthong. I took 5 years of Latin, we were always taught to pronounce that diphthong as rhyming with "eye." So I can understand people choosing to say eye-thur or "Ie - ther (sounds like Pie)" in this poll. The word spelled as "aether" originally comes from Latin and is translated as "the upper pure, bright air." The Greeks spelled it as aither and translated it basically the same way. Both the Latin and Greek would pronounce it as "Ie - ther (sounds like Pie)" according to this poll.

However, I don't agree with Higurashi in that meaning or context is lost through a change in pronunciation. Old French borrowed the word "aether" from Latin, changed the spelling to "ether" and as it transitioned to being used in the English language, it took on the pronunciation of "Ee - ther (sounds like Key)" according to this poll. Languages evolve and I think it's important to be comfortable with that. But, I strongly agree with her about reading accounts/stories in their original language. Much is lost in translation.

For eljoemo who said Caesar is pronounced "See-sar," that is what we say in English, but being that it was Latin it is originally pronounced "kai-sar" where "kai" rhymes with "eye." The 'c' in Latin was always a hard 'c' sounding like 'k.' In German, the word became "Kaiser," so you can see how the pronunciation actually followed pretty well. It is said to be the earliest loan word from Latin to German.

[xyan]

Dictionary says:
|ˈēTHər|

so that's "Ee - ther (sounds like Key)" according to your poll

I can understand people saying "Ay - ther (sounds like Hay)" but here, read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86

that link provides several different enunciations for different languages

[antiaverage]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86

that link provides several different enunciations for different languages

Yep, the point being that it is complicated. Languages evolve and collide. Read the rest of what I wrote.

I think it is important to respect the pronunciation of the language within which you are using the word. So for English, it is "Ee - ther (sounds like Key)" according to this poll. But, it's good to be aware of the other pronunciations and other languages involved.