After reading this thread i don't know anymore.
Cen tar
Or cen tor
I don't pay close enough attention to myself to be sure which i normally say
Both relatable and understandable. Thank you for the answer!
Sentour.
sen-tor
As in taurus, which rhymes with torus.
This is the only way in English I've ever known
A bunch of Americans pronounce it sen-tar for some reason that I've never understood.
That's how it looks.
I also pronounce Taurus closer to "Tarus" than toorus.
That's one of my wife's answers.
You're very prompt.
Correctly, smugly and pretentiously
Nice.
ken-tavr, I think that's similar to how it pronounced in a lot of languges around here, it's also pretty similar how original greeks did it (kένταυροι)
Solid.
Like the other commenter I pronounce it sen-tor. Just like the word "dinosaur" I would pronounce die-no-sor if that makes sense. Both words end in "aur".
...though now you've got me curious about how you and your wife pronounce dinosaur :)
Dino-saw. That's just because of how the DNA molecule character pronounces it in Jurassic Park, and it cracks me up.
I always heard it as dina-sour in Jurassic Park, can't shake that mental reference haha
If it’s in a Greek or ancient Latin context I pronounce it with a hard C, but if it’s a general English context I pronounce it with a soft C.
I’m not sure what the third way would be.
So far, the main way I haven't seen suggested.
I guess I owe my wife an apology.
So how do you pronounce it?
Honestly, I'm afraid to say. No one will support me, it seems.
Sen-chwar.
I have not once in my entire life heard anyone say it like that. Where are you from? Maybe it's a regional thing...
Maryland. Maybe it's regional, like you said. However, I was sheltered growing up, so maybe not.
That very well could be regional. Are you near Baltimore? I grew up around DC, but mostly in Annapolis, and I’ve always said it like cen-tar
Edit - I agree with the person below, your brain probably decided that’s how it was pronounced at a young age. There’s a bunch of words I’ve read but never say out loud because I know I will say them wrong! I should just own them, there’s too many great words out there!
I told my wife about this thread and about how you said you pronounced it differently and she jokingly said “sen-CHWAR” in a funny voice. When I read your comment off to her she laughed incredibly hard. Her joke turned out to be spot on lol.
Rude.
But I'm glad I could add some levity to your day! I can often make my wife chortle, but when I can make her laugh incredibly hard it's a good day.
Wouldn't that be spelled centuar (like how "actually" is often pronounced "ackschwally") and not centaur?
Man, English is a mess.
Be fair. We inherited most of that mess from the French.
sen-tar
"sen-" like "cent" (like 25 cents), and "-tar" like "a tar pit"
Scent-ore
Simply "englishified" from French where I’ve ever heard only one way, Centaur (100 tor).
Cent-aur.
Cen-toor
sen-tar.
i could see sen-tor.
I pronounce it "Phil". And he would appreciate it if you would stop staring at his missing eye.
Sin tar is the usual way, though it'll sometimes come out more sin tawr, where the au is a bit more drawn out.
Sin tore is a fairly common one.
However, sin tar is more common, at least with what I've heard in meat space. That's a fairly limited thing though, since most of the people I have talked to over my fifty years have been fellow southerners. We do tend to use softer vowels in most cases, and tar is softer than tore in the way we tend to do vowels.
However, with the latin and Greek origins of the word, I'd argue that the tar or tawr would lean closer to that than tore, just because of similar words. When an au is present in medical terminology (which is where almost all of my latin and Greek comes from) it usually gets pronounced aw or ah, not oh.
But, I never hear anyone pronounce the initial C as a K, and that's the way it would have been in both of those languages originally. The Greek version is spelled with a K, when written with the usual alphabet rather than Greek. Kentauros.
Which is an aside.
Wikipedia lists the two I did as the usual pronunciations, fwiw. And all the dictionaries with audio options are either those two, or slight variations of them, where the au sound is rounder or flatter than the norm.
Thing is, it's a word in a living language. Whatever the original English pronunciation may have been, that can change, so supporting a pronunciation is kind of meaningless. What matters is consensus over time, and by location.
So, a regional accent that sounds more like cent-ur is just as valid in that region, it just isn't standard. So would any other variant be, if there's enough people using it to be called a consensus.
Ken (as the name) - ta (with a hard T and A as in catapult) - ur (with an u like in Vonnegut's name)
tho I'm from europe speaking a weird ass language
Senn-torr
The "taur" is probably the same root as in "Taurus" and "el Toro"¹, which I've only ever heard said like torr, so I say it the same. The first part I don't think is ever said anything other than "senn" right?
¹I can't back that up, since they mean bull not horse and I have no sources. We do see the same root pop up in "Minotaur" from the same language though, and that is a part bull part man.
Tauros in greek is bull, yeah. The minotaur was the Bull of Minos. It may link back to the pre-greek people of crete, known for bull-leaping.
The "ken" in "Kentauros" is thought to mean piercing, but why is a piercing bull a half man/horse? There's no obvious explanation.
I love the idea of -tauros coming to mean a monstrous combination, like franken- in english. But if there were any evidence of that some very excited nerds would've told us, I'm sure.
Kenta-kun thsnks to a Japanese dota 2 stream
Sehn-tar, because I am American and that's how I learned to say it. How am I meant to justify a common pronunciation?
Sen-tar. I used to say sen-tore as a kid (as in taurine) but I think it sounds better the other way. Also easier to say in my opinion.
¢-aur — I'm not sure why I pronounce it that way; it's just how I've always pronounced it.
The most incorrect pronunciation i can come up with is probably ken-TAH-oo-ur
the Greeks in here are saying that's basically correct.
That's like the most correct one if there even could be a 'correct' way to pronounce a word of foreign origin in most languages.
In English, it's a matter of honor to mangle foreign loan words, unless you're the kind of twit who pedantically pronounces foreign words as though you're not speaking English, but the language of origin. That's most common with French loanwords, since French was once considered higher-prestige than English. But I've even heard people attempting to pronounce Arabic words like that, despite having no idea of Arabic phonology or case inflection, with ridiculous results.
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