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I've been scouring the internet for this and I'm pretty sure it's an /ɛ/ or /ei/ but I've also seen it pronounced as a long /i/ (as in beat) or as a weird /aeo/.

tchrist
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BlackjackSun
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1 Answers1

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All Latin grammars that I know of, from which this sounds comes, recommend it be pronounced like /ai/ in aisle.

ΥΣΕΡ26328
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    That's Latin, not English. Anglo-Saxon pronounced æ like the vowel of bad. – Peter Shor Jun 20 '17 at 13:33
  • @PeterShor Yes, the sound is Latin, as I have already mentioned. And, being a Latin sound, it should be pronounced as such; as you would pronounce typically French or German sounds the way they are pronounced in French or German. For instance, how do you pronounce, in English, ü in Müller? The same as the Germans do. – ΥΣΕΡ26328 Jun 20 '17 at 13:37
  • The sound r in Latin was trilled. Nobody thinks we should pronounce ratio with a trilled [r] because it comes from Latin. Are you saying we should pronounce algae so it ends with eye because it comes from Latin. Then shouldn't we pronounce it with a hard [g] as well? All-guy rather than Al-gee? – Peter Shor Jun 20 '17 at 13:41
  • @PeterShor The sound r is common to more than one language, so it should be pronounced in each language according to its distinct rules of pronunciation. But this Latin sound is unique to Latin so it should be pronounced as it would have been in Latin, and the same goes for the German sound I gave as an example in my last comment. – ΥΣΕΡ26328 Jun 20 '17 at 13:47
  • @PeterShor The ae in algae is not an æ, therefore it shouldn't have to have the same pronunciation – BlackjackSun Jun 20 '17 at 13:50
  • Actually, in classical periods Latin "ae" was probably pronounced more like [ae] than [ai] (hence the spelling), or at least like [aɪ]. And later on it became a monophthong [ɛː]. – herisson Jun 20 '17 at 13:51
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    @BlackjackSun: The word algæ can be spelled with a ligature in English. And it should be pronounced the same no matter how it is spelled. – Peter Shor Jun 20 '17 at 13:54
  • @PeterShor Maybe we should have a question on the pronunciation of algae? – BlackjackSun Jun 20 '17 at 14:01
  • @BlackjackSun: On forvo.com, algae seems to be pronounced with both a hard and soft "g" (and both pronunciations have been upvoted). But the only pronunciation that ends with [aɪ] has two downvotes, which means that people think it's wrong. – Peter Shor Jun 20 '17 at 14:04
  • @PeterShor That people think it's wrong. You know the implications of that – BlackjackSun Jun 20 '17 at 14:07
  • @BlackjackSun: Pronunciation isn't like math. If there's a pronunciation for a word that almost nobody uses, that pronunciation is incorrect (unless that word is somebody's name). – Peter Shor Jun 20 '17 at 14:09
  • @PeterShor Perhaps the OP should have specified in which language they wanted to know how this sound is pronounced. And as long as they didn't, both you and Frederic M. Wheelock are right. What a quantum thing pronunciation is... – ΥΣΕΡ26328 Jun 20 '17 at 14:14
  • @PeterShor Not in all cases. For example, a lot of people pronounce creme cream, but it's actual pronunciation is crem – BlackjackSun Jun 20 '17 at 14:16
  • @PeterShor it is also not an english sound, but a latin one – BlackjackSun Jun 20 '17 at 14:17
  • @BlackjackSun: The French pronunciation of "crème" is not "crem". The initial consonant cluster sounds different from English "cream". It's more like "kchem," where "ch" is like the final consonant of "Bach". – herisson Jun 20 '17 at 16:57
  • @sumelic I'm talking about the english pronunciation – BlackjackSun Jun 21 '17 at 00:40
  • The logic that one should pronounce it as it should be I really appreciate. Your German example for example. But should it sound like it in an English word? For example encyclopaedia is a long E. So I don't think that always holds. – Pryftan Mar 22 '20 at 14:18