Monday, May 21, 2007

I can C clearly now the K is gone

As many of you already know, Chrysler has been bought out by a venture capital group called Cerberus. This is the same name as 3-headed dog that guards Hades in Greek mythology. While Cerberus Capital does not have an image of a three headed dog in its company logo, and I could not find any reference to it in the company profile, it is almost certain that this mythical figure has played some role in the name of the company. I heard the name several times while the news was current. Each time, they called pronounced it /ser-ber-us/ - that is with the C making the S sound. I, too, have pronounced it the same way. I got to thinking, though, that there is no C in the Greek alphabet. There is s K (kappa) and there is an S (sigma). So, as normally happens, my curiosity was piqued and I had to research it.
It turns out that the Greek word for Cerberus was Κέρβερος, (Kerberos) so it really should be pronounced with a hard C sound. Of course, this opened up the flood gates, and made me wonder what other Greek based words starting with “CE” or “CI” we have been mispronouncing. Centaur is another one from Greek mythology - Κένταυρος (Kentauros). Ceramic - κεραμικός (keramikos). Cinema – Κινημα (Kinema).
Probably the way that these words got to their current pronunciation was when Greece was invaded by Rome and these words were incorporated into the Latin language, which by the way, makes profuse use of the S sounding C (e.g. circa). I understand that languages change, but we loose something when we forget where they came from. For instance, the root word for Cinema or Kinema is the same as the root word for Kinetics (or having to do with motion). I think it is simply amazing when words make sense.

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