Why do people pronounce “Celtics” (as in Boston Celtics) with a soft s of some kind, so “seltiks” instead of “Keltiks”?
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The C that is pronounced S is the French C when followed by a E or I.
You find it everywhere in English (certain, celebrate, celebrity, citizen, center, etc…)
So people pronounce celts following the same rule as words they already know
Celtic is a Latin word (Celtae) from Greek (Κελτοί—Keltoi). In classical Latin, all Cs are hard. However, later forms of Latin (e.g. ecclesiastical Latin) softened the C. So a name like Caesar pronounced in classical Latin is Kaesar while in ecclesiastical Latin it is pronounced Saesar.
For whatever reasons, the basketball team decided to use the ecclesiastical pronunciation. Modern English typically does, and perhaps more so back in the 1940s when the team was founded. However, people instead chose to use the classical pronunciation when referring to the linguistic group of people. Perhaps they wanted that name to reflect what the Romans that named them. If there is an exact socio-cultural reason aside form arbitrary choice, I am not familiar with it. Perhaps an etymologist or linguist can chime in and some more history behind this.
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lol as someone with distinct ***K***eltic heritage who plays in a ***K***eltic music group this question has bothered me for awhile, glad to see I’m not alone
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By normal phonological developments, the Latin word *Celtic-*, which was originally pronounced “Keltic,” came to be pronounced in English, like every other *c* before an *e*, with a soft *c*, i.e. “Seltic.” The pronunciation of the Boston “Seltics” thus simply represents the natural evolution of the sound.
Entering into the 20th century, however, the Irish nationalist movement sought to de-englishify the pronunciation of the word “Celtic” and thus started the trend of pronouncing it as “Keltic” in line with the original Latin. This pronunciation then diffused through academic circles and is now essentially the standard when talking about the history or culture of the (hard-c) Celts.
One April fools day, NPR announced the Celtics were changing the pronunciation to the hard K. People got really upset and it was hilarious.
I agree the name would come from Latin. The way I was taught Latin was that is the C is followed by vowels A, O or U, it’s pronounced as [K]; when followed by E or I, it would be pronounced as [S] or sometimes even as “tsch”. The truth is I heard so many different pronunciations that it’s hard to tell, but me personally I’d pronounce Celtics as [Seltiks] too. Personal choice. 🙂
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