For example:
Styracaceae, Suidae, Sulidae, Sylviidae, Symplocaceae, etc.
I don’t know how to pronounce them correctly.
For example:
Styracaceae, Suidae, Sulidae, Sylviidae, Symplocaceae, etc.
I don’t know how to pronounce them correctly.
I'm listing the English words ending with -ae and formed as the plural of a word in -a of Latin origin. I found in the New Oxford American Dictionary (by alphabetical order):
word American English British English
---------------------------------------------------------
algae -dʒi or -gaɪ -dʒiː or -giː
alumnae -mnaɪ or -mni -niː
amoebae -bi -biː
antennae -ni or -naɪ -niː
axillae -li or -laɪ -liː
ballistae -sti or -staɪ -stiː
branchiae -kii or -kaɪ -kiiː
bursae -si or -saɪ -siː
catenae -ni or -naɪ -niː
drachmae -mi or -maɪ -miː
exuviae -vii or -viaɪ -viiː
I stopped there, but it appears clear that:
I'm going to post the pronunciation of the diphthong ae in Latin. It might differ from the actual pronunciation that is being adopted nowadays; this because it's inevitable that the mother tongue language influences the pronunciation of words coming from other languages (being recent or not).
There were different phases for the Latin language, although the ones that we are interested in are these ones. The expression names might be different, considering I translated them from the italian ones:
This gent seems to have what I'd consider a clear, definitive answer on the matter. Even if it's largely anecdotal it seems well supported. I was unable to come to any conclusions based on the above, hence:
http://n8henrie.com/2012/09/pronunciation-of-words-ending-in-ae
So to the poster (if s/he's still unclear) and anyone else searching I would err on the side of the blog writer.
Considering their origin is Latin, the "ae" should be pronounced the 'a' in "master", American English.
Usually words ending in -ae are the plural form form of a word ending in -a, e.g.
puella - girl
puellae - girls
Italian, the modern day successor or Latin is using -a and -e for female singular and plural:
ragazza - girl
ragazze - girls
But you can clearly see that the pronunciation -e is closer to -ae than -ay.