Tattoo Help

[Galethorn]

It's debatable. It's my understanding that when spoken by Julius Caesar, he pronounced it 'ee-ahk-tah,' much like Jesus, in latin, was spelled IESU/IESUS (depending on the tense), and pronounced 'ee-ey-sue' by the people who were chanting the name in the first century AD. The other likely pronunciation for these 'IA/IE' words would be like 'ja' in German, in the case of IA, or like 'Yay' in English for IE.

In English, it's difficult to imagine anyone pronouncing it either of those ways; 'Jack-tuh' or 'Zhack-tuh' seem much more likely for native English speakers.

And, as far as I'm concerned, it makes sense to work with the alphabet that comes with Latin when transcribing Latin phrases. Were it an originally Russian, Mandarin, or Arabic phrase, it would make sense to warp the pronunciation a bit so you could use the Latin alphabet. Changing Ia to Ja with Latin seems more equivalent to replacing the Ö in German with OE, or spelling Paris 'Pairee.'

That's just me, of course. When in Rome...

 

[Nyaricus]

It's debatable. It's my understanding that when spoken by Julius Caesar, he pronounced it 'ee-ahk-tah,' much like Jesus, in latin, was spelled IESU/IESUS (depending on the tense), and pronounced 'ee-ey-sue' by the people who were chanting the name in the first century AD. The other likely pronunciation for these 'IA/IE' words would be like 'ja' in German, in the case of IA, or like 'Yay' in English for IE.

In English, it's difficult to imagine anyone pronouncing it either of those ways; 'Jack-tuh' or 'Zhack-tuh' seem much more likely for native English speakers.

And, as far as I'm concerned, it makes sense to work with the alphabet that comes with Latin when transcribing Latin phrases. Were it an originally Russian, Mandarin, or Arabic phrase, it would make sense to warp the pronunciation a bit so you could use the Latin alphabet. Changing Ia to Ja with Latin seems more equivalent to replacing the Ö in German with OE, or spelling Paris 'Pairee.'

That's just me, of course. When in Rome...

Ah, see, you and I are kindred hearts when it comes to it. I had simply thought that it was the translation which changed the "i" to a "j", whereas that's just some Anglicization of the letter/word.

As with you, I'd much rather have correct, regional pronunciations be the standard world-wide - ie one might say "I'm going to Roma (or "Rome" as we call it) on vacation!" Or, "Caesar quoth 'alea iacta est' as he crossed the Rubicone." Stuff like that.

cheers,
--N