Question About Carthage

[NewWaver]

This has been bugging me for a long time now...

How do you pronounce Carthage??? Is it like "Cart-Hage", or "Carth-Age", or something else? I'm afraid to try saying it in case I get laughed at by history-lovers.

 

[Kraznaya]

Always been Car-thage to me.

 

[JonnyB]

Kar-thidge? I'm not sure how to best spell it to reflect the pronunciation, but I don't pronounce the last part like the word Age.

 

[Tee Kay]

I say Car-thaj.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

It is properly pronounced 'Cart-Hage'. The name derives from Phoenecian 'Qart Hadash'. Furthermore, to my knowledge, there is no Latin word with a th that is pronounced the English way.
Of course, most modern people pronounce it Car-thage anyway.

 

[sabo]

Or you could just pronounce it TOON EE SIA..

 

[thetrooper]

Always been Car-thage to me.

Ditto, but I suspect that Stefan is right.

 

[Leifmk]

It is properly pronounced 'Cart-Hage'. The name derives from Phoenecian 'Qart Hadash'.

Yeah, but via the Latin 'Carthago' and has apparently suffered the same fate as many other sloppily Anglicized Latin words.

Furthermore, to my knowledge, there is no Latin word with a th that is pronounced the English way.

Classical Latin had no "th" phoneme, but did take in loan words from languages that did (especially Greek). Most speakers would pronounce it as a simple "t", unless they were being pedants (educated men learned Greek and often would be pedants). It would be a three-syllable word in Latin: Car-tha-go.

 

[Plotinus]

Yes, but the Greek theta was not really pronounced like the English "th". It was a more subtly aspirated "t".

 

[Leifmk]

Yes, but the Greek theta was not really pronounced like the English "th". It was a more subtly aspirated "t".

Yeah, but that's all Greek to me (I studied Latin instead).

More generally, classical Latin had no aspirated consonants.

 

[Nylan]

Ditto, but I suspect that Stefan is right.

double ditto