Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation)

[Baker, John]

        I've long wondered about the pronunciation of "celtic" with an
initial k.  Why should "celtic" be pronounced differently from any other
word anglicized from Latin?

        Of course, regardless of the pronunciation, there was no
justification for the basketball team's nouning of an adjective.  The Boston
team should have been named the Celts.

John Baker


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM [SMTP:Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 1:06 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      Celtic (was: schedule --pronunciation)
>
> Mike Salovesh <t20mxs1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU> writes:
>
> >>>>>
> Hamp's heroic persistence has also taught many students, perhaps even a
> dozen of us, that "celtic" (with or without initial capital C) is
> properly pronounced with an initial k in all contexts save basketball.
> An additional handful of Hamp- influenced scholars may not go quite that
> far, but still use the s/k alternation in "celtic" as a case of the
> kentum/chentum/sentum/tsentum lines of dialect separation in European
> languages.
> <<<<<
>
> Well, here in the Boston area there is plenty of Celtic music on the
> radio,
> always /'kEl.tIk/. But, of course, this *is* the home of the Boston
> /'sEl.tIks/.
>
> >>>>>
> P.S.:  I should have added a clarification that the example of "celtic",
> unlike America, does not go from C to shining C.  The second C in celtic
> is phonemic /s/. See what I mean about my pathological urge to say the
> obvious?
> <<<<<
>
> */'kEl.tIs/ ???????
>
> -- Mark