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The Encyclopædia Brittanica still uses the symbol "æ". However, I still hear everyone pronounce it as "Encyclo pee dia", when their spelling suggests more along the lines of "Encyclo pah dia" or "encyclo pay dia". In a more general sense, should æ or Æ always be pronounced as a long e sound? When I see it used, it is in dæmon, æther, or æon.

The wikipedia page makes it clear that they should be pronounced with another sound along the lines of ah or eh... confusing because I want to pronounce it as "ai" or "ay". Given the name "Aion" as a recent videogame, and the common pronunciation of a CS mailer-daemon as "Daymon", clearly others behave the same way.

The problem lies in that æ used to be pronounced as ah/eh, and now seems to be pronounced as ay. Encyclopædia is the only exception... being pronounced as ee?

How do I pronounce it when seen in English? ee, ay, or ah/eh?

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2  
There’s no simple answer to any question of the form “How is <letter>/<digraph> pronounced?” It depends. As you’ll have seen in the Wikipedia article, what would have been pronounced /ai/ in Latin is usually pronounced /iː/ in English, but there are inevitably exceptions like the name Æleen, or examples like paedophile where the British rendering /iː/ goes through both a spelling and a pronunciation change to become /ɛ/ in American English. And that’s to say nothing of the Mediæval Bæbes... – Brian Nixon Jun 13 '12 at 22:01
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Encyclopaedia does not contain, and has never contained the letter 'Ash'. It is however sometimes written with the digraph 'æ', which has only an accidental resemblance to the ash. – Colin Fine Jun 13 '12 at 22:58

5 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

You have to distinguish English vowels from English orthography. There are between twelve and fifteen distinct vowels in English, depending on your dialect, but there are only 5 vowel letters in the orthography. This causes no end of problems.

The letter æ was used in Old English to represent the vowel that's pronounced in Modern English ash, fan, happy, and last: /æ/. Mostly we now spell that vowel with the letter a, because of the Great Vowel Shift.

When æ appears in writing Modern English, it's meant to be a font variant of ae, and is pronounced the same as that sequence of vowel letters would be. So Encyclopaedia or Encyclopædia, no difference.

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Even Encyclopaedia Brittanica pronounces it as a long e sound, in their ads and so on. According to your answer, that is wrong. Is such a major organization, who should clearly understand pronunciation, making an error in their own name? – Lawton Jun 13 '12 at 21:14
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As I said, you have to distinguish English spelling from pronunciation. There's no difference between the letters"ae" together and the "æ" ligature; and there's no rule for how to pronounce them, either -- every word is different. The words encyclopædia, encyclopedia, and encyclopaedia are all pronounced the same, however you pronounce them. I pronounce that vowel as /i/, myself. – John Lawler Jun 13 '12 at 22:39
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@Lawton - You're missing the fact that English spelling does not represent English pronunciation -- and was not meant to represent it, whatever they told you in school. It represents Middle English pronunciation, not Modern English. Don't look at spelling and expect to get pronunciation; it doesn't work that way. Sorry. – John Lawler Jun 13 '12 at 23:16
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@Lawton: Consider aestivation/estivation, aestrus/estrus, anaemia/anemia, archaeologist, bacteraemia/bacteremia, paean, paediatric/pediatric, &c. Perhaps also consider amoeba/ameba, apnoea/apnea, oestrogren/estrogen, diarrhoea/diarrhea, oecology/economy, logorrhoeic/logorrheic, coelacanth, oenology, Phoebe, phoenix, subpoena, ooecium/oecium. In all cases I can think of in classically derived words, whether it is spelled æ/ae/e or œ/oe/e makes no difference (French imports like bœuf, hors d’œuvre, cri de cœur, trompe l’œil don’t count—just Latin or Greek for ae and Greek for oe.) – tchrist Jun 13 '12 at 23:33
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@Lawton: trademark restrictions may be one explanation, but you may see 'ae' elsewhere where trademark isn't involved. There the explanation would be that it is an archaic spelling, like all of tchrist's alternate spellings. – Mitch Jun 13 '12 at 23:57
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up vote 7 down vote

English orthography is rule based...except it's not very good at following the rules. Sometimes it uses a regular literal one-to-one pronunciation, at oher times the spelling got stuck centuries ago but sounds changes occurred in speech, and sometimes, the word is written as from the foreign language it was borrowed from but the impossible or unlikely pronunciation is adapted to English mouths and ears.

The pair 'ae' or the single mushed together symbol 'æ', is not pronounced as two separate vowels. It comes (almost always) from a borrowing from Latin. In the original Latin it is pronounced as /ai/ (in IPA) or to rhyme with the word 'eye'. But, for whatever reason, it is usually pronounced as '/iy/' or "ee". Encyclodpeeedia, alumneee (for many female 'alumnae'). Another variant is /ɛ/ in an-eh-sthetic for 'anaesthetic'. Note that many of these spellings are now variants and the more common spelling removes the strange looking 'a'.

Another pair borrowed from Latin is 'oe' is in (the old fashioned spelling) 'oesophagus' where it is pronounced /ɛ/ 'eh' eh-sah-fuh-gus.

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Mitch, see my comment. BTW, when I was taught Latin, we were actually told to pronounce ae as /ae/, but everyone turned the /e/ into the familiar glide of English mice. – tchrist Jun 13 '12 at 23:52
@tchrist: thanks for that list of many examples. That's was what I was alluding to. I only answered separately from JL because i felt there needed to be a direct answer to the OP's 'How do you pronounce it?' – Mitch Jun 14 '12 at 0:00
up vote 2 down vote

Encyclopaedia is a Greek work. It is a compound word and it has three morphemes: en - cyclo - paedia, meaning in - cycle - education (general education).Paedia comes from the Greek word παιδεία /pε:δΙ'Λ/. So, the spelling is influenced by the Greek spelling just like all the other Greek words mentioned above in other posts. In some cases pronunciation stays the same as in Greek like in anaesthetic.

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up vote 0 down vote

I have never heard an American say it any other way than "Encyclo-pee-dia". I have no research to back up that pronunciation, but you will not sound strange if you say it that way. (among Americans)

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It's the same in Britain; the difference is that anaemia, for example, is here pronounced with the long e but spelt ae. OPs question seems to spring from a transatlantic misunderstanding. – TimLymington Jun 13 '12 at 23:06
up vote 0 down vote

common pronunciation of a CS mailer-daemon as "Daymon"

That would be a common mispronunciation, as daemon is properly pronounced as [dee-muhn].

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3  
Sort of. I believe that people using that pronunciation are generally aware that it is "wrong" and use the alternate pronunciation for clarity (differentiating between daemon and actual demons). Telling a computer illiterate about a demon would confuse them. A new word, pronounced as daymon, is useful for preventing that. – Lawton Jun 13 '12 at 23:58

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