"You say neither, I say n-eye-ther,...."
If language were static we'd all sound the same. But it isn't. Australians,
Brits, Americans, Jamaicans, Guyanase, Canadians (eh?) all pronounce the
same words with a bit of a twist. The late Crocodile Hunter had "mites"
whereas you and I have mates. You might also have noticed "Eye-rak" for
Ear-rahk particularly among higher members of American government. Why
don't we say "Eyetaly" for Italy? Examples abound.

I think we ought to spin off a list on these issues as they seem need a lot
of bandwidth that is swamping this list.

Regards,
Anita Citron
Hicksville, NY

Subject:
From: MBernet@...
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 22:51:58 EDT
X-Message-Number: 3

In a message dated 9/11/2006 10:15:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
jrw@... writes:

<< Eysyk, Eisig and the English Isaac are all pronounced very much
alike. What I don't understand, though, is how the long "I" sound
gets into Yiddish versions of the name Yitzhak -- because normally it
is only English that gives a long "I" sound to that vowel -- which of
course in the original Hebrew has only the short "i" sound as in the
word "it."

<< Maybe someone can explain to us how one gets >from Icek
(pronounced It-sek) or Izak (pronounced It-zak) to the long "I"
sound in Ei-sig or Ey-syk. >>

MODERATOR NOTE: This subject seems to wandering away >from genealogy