with some u's and o's in there. around? I can't help but suspect that the "hara-kiri" pronunciation may have been somewhat influenced by the prominence of a famous baseball announcer, Harry Carey. See Google Translate's machine translation of 'Cerberus'. As for "karaoke", it is always said the "American" way I have never heard it pronounced with the Japanese vowel sounds. It's not too surprising that English speakers would find it hard to know which vowel to use in the first syllable (such confusion is not uncommon even among those Anglophones who have had French lessons up to a certain level), but why would a final "ie" (which French and English both normally pronounce as "ee" /i/) become "ay" /e/? As for the word karaoke, I'm surprised no one so for (unless I missed it) has pointed out that the 2nd syllable and 4th syllables are unstressed in English and this very well might affect the word pronunciation. Is it only an American English remnant? I believe his comedy partner, the equally funny Stephen Merchant, says it that way as well. Filed by Victor Mair under Borrowing, Pronunciation. My mind immediately goes to the way that Americans (and nowadays, sadly, more and more Britons) murder the word "lingerie". Ken, Tho if I were to talk about it, I'm sure I'd start to say that, and then probably hesitate about half-way thru, realizing I wasn't actually sure of a "proper" pronunciation that most would recognize, since most of the time I'm reading it, and that the only relatively sure thing I know about the pronunciation is that what I hear in my head reading it pretty certainly is /not/ what "everyone else" hears when reading it, or how they say it. From Turkish Cerchi (Italian) I agree with some commenters above in that this is probably mainly due to the "ao" combination not being found in native English words. @Susan: Karaoke could not have been imported into English "many generations ago" as it was only created in 1971 when the technology became available. Of course seeing as the original Japanese is "hadouken", maybe that's just, like, hearing it slightly differently. In grad school, my major Professors first name was Takayuki. It isn't always laziness or inattention my ex always pronounced it "suduko" no matter how many times I pointed out the spelling and practiced pronouncing it slowly with her. By contrast, "pita" was borrowed into English (probably from Greek although apparently there are rival theories) less than a century ago and has the FLEECE vowel. The American pronunciation of karaoke is in line with our tendency to stress the second-to-last syllable, and to change of the final "e" sound in other Japanese words, e.g., "karate" (kah-RAH-tee") and "sake" (SAH-kee). And sounds pretencious. This "other" pronunciation (sah-doo-koh/suh-DUE-koe) is used by a significant proportion of the population. Word of the day - in your inbox every day, 2022 HowToPronounce. I think a lot of it comes down to the influence of spelling on pronunciation. I've heard "sooDOOkoo" from an American. (It doesn't?) My daughter once had a chihuahua she named "Gari." Become a WordReference Supporter to view the site ad-free. Add a note to the entry "Cerberus". I still maintain it's hard to pronounce a foreign word "properly" in the midst of an English sentence if it contains sounds (like rolled Rs) that don't exist in English. On a related note, I've heard sudoku pronounced suhdooku by someone who was trying to humorously substitute it for seppuku. The Metro newspaper in London ran its own version of Sudoku called 'Metroku' which made French-speakers laugh. He made some comment about "Leslie". If that doesn't capture quite the degree of ooh-laa-laa-lity desired, say 'frilly knickers'. Cerberus. This would explain the pronunciation suh-DOUGH-coo for sudoku, if accented on the second syllable. My next thought is that their gear is made in Asia, so it's pronounced like Nikkei. --Damon Knight, "In Search of Wonder" First published in the fabulously rare pulp magazine "The Thrill Book" in 1919, this masterful blend of time-travel fantasy, alternate realities, and social satire propels early 20th century Book three of a high-octane thriller series. However, Japanese words are transcribed into English using a systematic Romanization system, and English does not have systematic spelling. I find a question like "What's so special about that pattern of sounds that makes it so hard for English speakers?" Also that people will approximate to patterns that do exist in their own language, or to stereotypes learned from other foreign words.
I admit I hadn't really thought about karaoke and karate much before, so the comments have certainly been interesting. For those who are interested in etymology, "sudoku" literally means su ("number") + doku ("single"). ".
I certainly always pronounce, in my head, the vowels as written when I see the word sudoku. And then there's the issue of how to pronounce that "r", but I'm guessing you'd find it less weird to hear an American "r" together with Japanese-sounding vowels. I suppose a possible hypothesis would be that speakers unfamiliar with French misinterpreted the final "e" as a Spanish style /e/ (or an "e" like in Fr "caf", "fianc(e)") and then dropped or ignored the "i" as being too hard to combine with it. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_English_pronunciation_of_Latin, MW, AHD, Oxford, Cambridge, and Macmillan dictionaries, Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. FWIW I've never heard sudoku with -duko. Cf. Both are perfectly acceptable. If Victor Mair's late wife had been born in the PRC, Americans would pronounce her name as Lie-kwing Zzzanng.
I too was puzzled by Susan's comment. I had parsed the phrase as "Carioca machine," a new concept to me, but nonetheless one that sounded like a great thing to have in a bar. How did that get started? Since you have exceeded your time limit, your recording has been stopped.
Note: in some browsers the sound may not work properly! A it Cercibis (Translingual) But for God's sake don't say LAWN-ZHEH-RAY unless your trying to come across as Hyacinth Bouquet meets Ann Summers. Adoption of the 'new pronunciation' was a long drawn out process, but by the mid-20th century, classroom use of the traditional pronunciation had ceased." Related words &, Cite this page: "Cerberus" WordSense Online Dictionary (22nd July, 2022) URL: https://www.wordsense.eu/Cerberus/. I'm not sure if there's a good explanation for the difference. The "i" coming out as the PRICE vowel not the FLEECE vowel is parallel with e.g. HTML tags and links are not allowed. Is it mainly an American pronunciation? Proper noun "Did you say Gah-Dee?". I expect I'm not the only British person to have first heard of karaoke in Michael Palin's TV series "Around the world in 80 days", filmed in 1988. 'pa pdd chac-sb tc-bd bw hbr-20 hbss lpt-25' : 'hdn'">, Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes, Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English. Pronounce Cerberus in English, Can you pronounce it better? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_English_pronunciation_of_Latin ). Proper noun The irony is that it was tougher to rent a car from. I'm surprised that Americans don't pronounce "Nike" to rhyme with "Mike". "Pita" has the MISS vowel in British English, and it's usually "pitta". They have glanced at the word a million times and have remembered it as s?d?k? @Mollymooly I first heard the "suduko" pronunciation on the podcast of the brilliant English comedian Ricky Gervais. If you asked them to spell it from memory they'd probably get it wrong similarly often. The "kara" in "karaoke" looks to have a rhotic "r" yet the Japanese "r" often approximates an American English flapped "t" (e.g. (Darned if I can find it on YouTube, though. WordReference English-Spanish Dictionary 2022: Forum discussions with the word(s) "Cerberus" in the title: In other languages: French | Italian | Portuguese | Romanian | German | Dutch | Swedish | Russian | Polish | Czech | Greek | Turkish | Chinese | Japanese | Korean | Arabic. Report an error or suggest an improvement.
I suppose this says something about the way I triage TV and internet feeds, and the kind of conversations I don't have. Spelling pronunciations certainly do arise with English pronunciation rules other than those with Greek loanwords. Webster's Dictionary, WordNet and others. The other thing with "Nike" is that it was borrowed (via Latin) so long ago that its pronunciation reflects historical pronunciation shifts within English (and/or more specifically in Anglophone pronunciation of Latin/Latinate words). We pronounced his name just as you would in Japanese. Congrats! Proper noun It took me a long several seconds to process the guffawing of my niece and nephew upon learning that the Korean word for 'fly' (the insect) was "pari". Congrats! If I say that out loud, it sounds almost identical to "carry-okie". I've used the term "electron microscopy" in hundreds of lectures, interviews, and conversations, but if I don't say it very slowly and carefully and deliberately I nearly always choke on it. And comparing "sudoku" with "karaoke" is wrong, as the later was borrowed in English many generations ago, and has become Anglicized and formalized as [ke-ri-'o-ki]. But I know I run Linux, and while I had read about the game before, my first real exposure to /playing/ it was the kde (aka K Desktop Environment) game ksudoku. Loanwords borrowed from Greek are also mangled in English. Details can be found in the individual articles. I don't think the "carry okie" pronunciation is particularly puzzling. Cercibis (fem.) The word in the example sentence does not match the entry word. I don't think English has too many Japanese loan-words that have been around long enough for processes like that to play out. 'Destiny: The Taken King' Expansion Content Revealed; Raid Mode , Strikes such as the Dust Palace, Undying Mind and, InnerWorkings (INWK) Names Jeffrey Pritchett as CFO, Peter Robinson: I met with US firm over Nama portfolio, The 850-property portfolio was purchased last April by New York firm, CFO Moves: Radware, InnerWorkings, Sterling Construction. The definition of Cerberus in the dictionary is a dog, usually represented as having three heads, that guarded the entrance to Hades. His name could have reinforced that pronunciation, of course, along with the cowboy actors Harry Carey Sr. and Jr. Pronounce Cerberus in Dutch, Can you pronounce it better? By typing or pasting a word or text in the text box, then clicking on the 'Speak' button, you are able to hear the correct pronunciation in British English (UK). Cerchi (Gender incomplete)
Proper noun Of course, it's Japanese, not Greek, but I don't think people usually consciously connect how they guess at pronunciations from spellings with the language of origin.
But I wonder how many different ways there are to pronounce "sudoku" in English. Origin & history But, for some reason, many people murder Japanese words borrowed into English. With 'impasse' we have a choice: either pronounce it as if it was English (with the vowel from 'him') or get the French vowel sound right. AWM-pass makes you sound like an idiot and a pretentious one at that. From Ancient Greek Cercetius (Latin) Some years ago I read that book and lent it to a friend, another well-read and very intelligent man. AFAIK "doccu" is not a word in Sardinian or it would be funnier. >To be fair, the Japanese did rather murder the English word "orchestra" when incorporating it into "karaoke". Or with a different accent? Which in turn led to widespread mispronunciation when Classical Latin stopped being a mandatory subject in schools.". But it seems very strange to me to hear the Japanese "ou" as "u" rather than "o", and I haven't noticed this with any other Japanese words featuring it. Pronounce Cerberus in Latin, Random words: don't. (I welcome corrections.). Rate the pronunciation difficulty of cerberus. Can you pronounce it better? Of course, that simply means that I'm very old :). So I don't recall where/how I heard it pronounced. A lot of the English mangling of Greek would probably go away if the words were directly transliterated rather than filtered through Latin first. The references include Cambridge Dictionary Online, Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales, Century Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Dictionary of the Scots Language, Dictionnaire Illustr Latin-Franais, Duden, Oxford English Dictionary, Cercibis (fem.) The transformation of "karaoke" into "carry okie" follows the pattern of the transformation of "hara-kiri" into "harry carry". Cerbre (masc.) Japanese "ka-ra" becomes "karra" in American mouths, where the initial 'a' is a short sound. I thought there was a fairly common male name Nike (short for Nicholas) that rhymed with Mike, but apparently that's not actually the case Nick is several orders of magnitude more common. Malayalam?). Unfortunately, this browser does not support voice recording. It wasn't until high school that I heard white Americans saying "carry-okie". While some popular apps like Tasker have successfully secured exemptions, others like Cerberus have not.Slashdot, 8 January 2019, Private equity giant Cerberus Capital Management has bought loan books valued at more than 20 billion from major British banks and the UK Government since the financial crisis.Mail Online, 4 May 2019, German lender Commerzbank appointed former state bank executive Hans-Jrg Vetter as its new chairman, ignoring opposition from its second-largest shareholder, Cerberus Capital Management.Wall Street Journal, 3 August 2020, Greece's Alpha Bank is in talks with at least five US investment firms including Cerberus and PIMCO in a fresh attempt to offload a portfolio of bad debt worth more than 10 billion euros ($11.3 billion), two sources told Reuters.ekathimerini.com, 16 June 2020, Dorel Industries Inc. says it has reached an agreement in principle to be taken private by a group led by Cerberus Capital Management and the family that controls the company's multiple-voting shares.CBC, 2 November 2020, But a new paper suggests an eruption occurred as recently as 53,000 years ago in a region called Cerberus Fossae, which would be the youngest known volcanic eruption on Mars.Slashdot, 22 November 2020, The Financial Services Union (FSU) has said that the possibility of NatWest selling Ulster Bank's entire 20.5bn loan book to private equity company Cerberus is gravely concerning.Independent.ie, 16 October 2020, The lender declined to name the suitor but it is understood that New York-based Cerberus Capital Management is behind the bid.The Guardian, 17 November 2020, Two men are to face fraud charges linked to the sale of a Northern Ireland property portfolio with a multi-billion poundbook value by NAMA to the US investment fund, Cerberus, six years ago.RTE, 17 November 2020, The departure came as a surprise to Cerberus executives, who wanted him to stay.Wall Street Journal, 22 March 2021, hundo: pastorohundo volfohundo See also brako cerbero, Cerbero ( = Hundo = Cerberus, ) kanikulo hundo (Novial) Noun male dog Coordinate terms, tres: example: Audio (Classical) Numeral cardinal - three; 3 Ovid Metamorphoses tria Cerberus extulit ora et tres latratus semel edidit "Cerberus put forth three mouths and, worm: than the sword, whose tongue / Outvenoms all the worms of Nile. I learned the shoe brand first, but only written down, and until this thread I was pretty sure it rhymed with Mike. If they butchered it as bad a karaoke they'd pronounce it ka-RATE or CARRY-tea. I think there might be two things at play here the effect where nearby sounds influence each other (I forget what it's called, but in this case the first long u affecting the second vowel), and the fact that in English we're more familiar/comfortable with foreign-sounding words from languages like Spanish that end in o. I first encountered the word karaoke in this 1991 episode of the American sitcom Cheers. As far as I can tell, it's not that people don't know how to pronounce it, it's that they don't care. Or with a different accent? Or with a different accent? Embarrassingly (maybe not in this crowd), I knew this way back from reading a children's mystery book published before the founding of the shoe company and partially from Back to the Future III. I also imagine if said the word out loud, the first syllable might turn into a schwa. Frankrijk, Duitsland, school, Sinterklaas, ik. I'd spell the word karake in Icelandic (with the signifying the stress, of course). ", Years ago, there was a commercial for Isuzu where the white guy kept pronouncing is Izusu. Domenico Modugno, anybody? With 'lingerie' we also have a few options. Obviously (to me), its because English speakers dont adopt the word by verbal contact with Japanese speakers, but by encountering a transliteration of it in written English. Always having bought no-name brands of sportswear, it came as quite a surprise to me that's pronounced with two syllables; doesn't rhyme with Mike. This happens all the time, and people somehow know it's wrong and hesitate but can't choke out the "proper" pronunciation. Write a usage hint or an example and help to improve our dictionary. Add Eurydice to one of your lists below, or create a new one. I don't believe I've ever heard the word sudoku pronounced, and I've only heard karaoke pronounced at a couple of church karaoke nights. I don't like this post. Seems like your pronunciation of cerberus is not correct. Longfellow When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm, / His mouth he opened and displayed his tusks. Simplest option: call it underwear. What's so special about that pattern of sounds that makes it so hard for English speakers? The history of an idea. "So, for instance, Greek K sounds became hard Cs (as in Cerberus). An, Pluto: plutonic plutonium Pluto I Pluto II Pluto III Pluto IV 134340 Pluto See also Cerberus underworld Planets, Wikipedia article plutonium Anagrams pluot poult, centiceps: Adjective hundred-headed; with a hundred heads Usage Used to refer to Cerberus, the multi-headed dog who guarded the entrance to the underworld. He tried it in Tokyo and had to explain it to the viewer, as it was then unknown in the West. hard to take. Think of the way Japanese have "murdered" English words! Late to the party but re 'lingerie' as LAWN-ZHEH-RAY, the same thing happens with the first vowel of a word like 'impasse' and, like all forms of hypercorrection, I consider it to be fair game for mockery. My hypothesis is that many people don't look at the details of what they read or listen to the details of what they hear. We can look at "Mason-Dixon" becoming "Masie-Dixie", and eventually yielding the name "Dixie" for the South. (I disagree with Guy that it has to do specifically with the rules for Ancient Greek words. Share the pronunciation of Cerberus in Dutch: Share the pronunciation of Cerberus in English: Share the pronunciation of Cerberus in Latin: Is there anything wrong with this word/phrase. Oops! That should have been "you're", obviously. Pronounce the word cerberus . Interestingly, I first heard of karaoke through the Chinese for it, OK (ka la oh kay), which is much closer to the Japanese pronunciation, and it was a thing that the drunk uncles and aunties at parties did while us kids played video games. Cerbia (Latin) Take "karaoke", for example. So, for instance, Greek K sounds became hard Cs (as in Cerberus). To pick up Adrian's point, I often wonder where the oft-heard pronunciation of "lingerie" originates. Why? Keep up. You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics: Improve your vocabulary with English Vocabulary in Use from Cambridge.Learn the words you need to communicate with confidence. But I can imagine if I had reason to say the word from memory, I might misremember it and have it come out differently. Yes, I know, but the transformations that led to English pronunciations of Greek loans are pretty well understood and not very mysterious. "many people murder Japanese words borrowed into English". Before karaoke almost all bar singing in Japan was a capella, or as Garrison Kiellor once described it, "without music. Anything in violation of these guidelines will be removed immediately. As a side note, my Sardinian father finds Sudoku a hilarious word (like Subaru) because it includes the article "su" right in the word. You can listen to the Japanese pronunciation here. Proper noun So for me as I suppose for many Unix/Linux folks, it's very much s-u-do-ku (with the last pronounced ko as in Korea, or ku as in coup, depending on mood), It's s-u-do-whatever, with the -whatever bit pretty much only there to ensure that it's obvious I'm thinking/reading about the game, not the real super-user-do, so it doesn't actually matter what it is, as long as it's there. ), I haven't read all these comments, but as a teacher of Hindi I constantly had to remind students that unstressed vowels in Hindi words have their written vowel quality and are not reduced to a schwa-like vowel, as is normal in many English wordssuch as English mulatto (often pronounced muh-LAH-toe in casual speech). And there's a wider issue of prosody and vowel length in cross-language borrowings: take the Italian "latte", which the average British coffee-drinker pronounces as "laa-tay", though it would be just as easy to say "lat-tay". As I recall (and as Ngram Viewer seems to confirm), karaoke was virtually unknown in the US until the 1990s. I can't tell you how many AmE speakers had no idea what we were saying. (By the way, there exists a popular American song in which this pronunciation occurs repeatedly.). We pronounced his name just as you would in Japanese. I checked the pronunciation of "karaoke" in MW, AHD, Oxford, Cambridge, and Macmillan dictionaries; all list "carry-Okie" first or alone. Nike entered the US lexicon as a missile defense system decades before it became a shoe, so I'm surprised that some commenters are surprised by the two-syllable pronunciation, which I learned in grade school during the 1960s. For the Greek goddess, I have to consciously remember that she definitely doesn't rhyme with Mike, in which case I probably end up with "NICK-ay" or something similar.