When I studied neuroanatomy at university, my tutor (who later it turns out studied Latin in school), uses a different pronunciation than other neuroscientists. I prefer his pronunciation, but which one is technically correct, and for what reason?
My Tutor: pa-ri-ē-tal Everyone Else: pa-rī-e-tal
(please forgive my non-use of IPA, I can understand it but cannot write it accurately).
It comes from the Latin word, parietālis, which means "pertaining to a wall" (adj). That itself is derived from the Latin word, pariēs, meaning "wall" (noun).
The rule in Latin is to put the stress on the penult, unless the penult is a short syllable, which means we stress the antipenult instead. But as the word is shortened from parietālis, it makes sense that the stress should move a syllable to the left.
I appreciate that biological Latin has its own peculiar pronunciation style, but I'm not concerned about that: I want to know how it should be pronounced using Latinate pronunciation standards.
And with that, I've just thought I ought to post this on a Latin stack exchange. But we'll see what comes up, as it's still technically an English word
