Quote:
Originally Posted by Yapyap
That doesn't go for the pronunciation of Aphrodite though, or does it? In particular the "di" syllable there? I've got the impression this isn't pronounced like the English "die" sound in any other language, rather more like the English "dee" sound (and same with the "mi" in Hermione, i.e. it's more like "me" than "my").
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True. Modern English doesn't really have any pure long vowels - they all changed into diphthongs during the "Great Vowel Shift" which radically changed the sound of the language during the 15th and 16th centuries. Consequently, when we take words from other languages that do contain long pure vowels, we mangle them.