While I was re-reading some novels, a question suddenly occurred to me: how do you pronounce "Caeliar"? It seems straightforward to me to pronounce it as "KAY-lee-ahr", but it's not some standard English word. What do the rest of you think?
How is "Caeliar" pronounced?
- Thread starter Enterprise1701
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I think you're right. I seem to recall hearing Dave pronounce it that way, although I don't have a lot of faith in my memory.
For some reason, my brain always registers it "See-lee-arr." Don't really know why, in fact, I often stop myself and ask "why am I pronouncing it that way? How should it be pronounced?" But then, I just go ahead and continue my pronouncing it that way anyway.
You may be thinking of the Latin caelum as the root of "celestial." That occurred to me as a possible pronunciation as well.
A "Seh-lee-ar" here, but I'm not even an English native speaker, and I also get very confused with English words, which are loans with English pronunciation and still foreign spelling (in languages I know), so... Christopher may be right about Latin getting in the way here for me (the first syllable apparently influenced by the traditional Latin pronunciation of "ae", though, not "English" Latin pronunciation 
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Kay-Liar.
But I've heard some American pronunciations websites (to be fair, could be simple synthesised voice patterns pronouncing it See or See-ay.
Cae _should_ be pronounced Kay if you stick to proper English, but no one does these days. Hell, even literally now in the dictionary contains a definition for figuratively.
But I've heard some American pronunciations websites (to be fair, could be simple synthesised voice patterns pronouncing it See or See-ay.
Cae _should_ be pronounced Kay if you stick to proper English, but no one does these days. Hell, even literally now in the dictionary contains a definition for figuratively.
That's how I pronounce it in my head, too.
That's actually been in use for centuries, though it's become more common in the past century. It's been listed as an alternative definition in the Oxford English Dictionary since 1903, and there are documented examples going back to the 1760s.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/08/literally/
I don't have anything substantial to contribute, but you can add me to the KAY-lee-ar crowd.
There's two pronunciations of "Cae..." that come to mind, Caesar and Caerphilly.
But then pronunciation is a funny thing. My wife and I disagree on how to pronounce Bath. I say "Bath", she says "Barth". Our 2yo son finds it hilarious.
KAY-LEE-ARR (a pirate engineer on Serenity) or SEE-LEE-ARR (you're breaking my hive, you're shaking my unimatrix daily)
KAY-Liar or SEE-Liar really don't fit with me, too accusational.
But then pronunciation is a funny thing. My wife and I disagree on how to pronounce Bath. I say "Bath", she says "Barth". Our 2yo son finds it hilarious.
KAY-LEE-ARR (a pirate engineer on Serenity) or SEE-LEE-ARR (you're breaking my hive, you're shaking my unimatrix daily)
KAY-Liar or SEE-Liar really don't fit with me, too accusational.
It's KAY-lee-ar.
Thats how I'd been pronouncing it, though I'm probably wrong too.
Thank you very much, David.
That's how I read it in my head.
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