Ay-men

  • Thread starter Thread starter Usbek_de_Perse
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
U

Usbek_de_Perse

Guest
I never quite get this. Why do Catholics say AY-MEN, instead of Ah-MEN?

The Catholic Church has a rich intellectual tradition that includes the study of languages such as Hebrew, Greek and Latin (among others). What gives?

Sorry, but when I hear AY-MEN, I think of backwoods camp meetings.

Thoughts?
 
Maybe it’s just in your area. We say “Ah-men”, but sometimes I do hear “Ay-men”.

This reminds me of something I’ve always wondered about…why do Anglicans say “Hosannah” with an “a” as in “hat” on the second syllable, instead of an “ah” sound (“hosAHnnah”)? These things are all probably due to the area of the world we live in.
 
Usbek_de_Perse said:
I never quite get this. Why do Catholics say AY-MEN, instead of Ah-MEN?

The Catholic Church has a rich intellectual tradition that includes the study of languages such as Hebrew, Greek and Latin (among others). What gives?

Sorry, but when I hear AY-MEN, I think of backwoods camp meetings.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
We Catholics in London never say Ay-men but there again everyone here, regardless of denomination, says ah-men. Surely Ay-men is a mis-pronounciation.
 
Usbek_de_Perse said:
I never quite get this. Why do Catholics say AY-MEN, instead of Ah-MEN?

The Catholic Church has a rich intellectual tradition that includes the study of languages such as Hebrew, Greek and Latin (among others). What gives?

Sorry, but when I hear AY-MEN, I think of backwoods camp meetings.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Is it something to do with local pronunciation of English? Where I live I think everyone says “ah-men”. I suspect this has more to do with local pronunciation than most people here knowing it ought to be “ah-men” rather than “ay-men”.
 
I think it is a local pronunciation thing. In the countries I’ve lived, we always said ah-men. The priest at my old parish actually used to teach us in RCIA to say ah-men rather than ay-men. I don’t like the sound of ay-men, I don’t know why.
opus101 said:
Maybe it’s just in your area. We say “Ah-men”, but sometimes I do hear “Ay-men”.

This reminds me of something I’ve always wondered about…why do Anglicans say “Hosannah” with an “a” as in “hat” on the second syllable, instead of an “ah” sound (“hosAHnnah”)? These things are all probably due to the area of the world we live in.
Click to expand...
Not just Anglicans, I think it must be a UK thing. We always say it as “hosannah” not “hosAHnnah” - the second way sounds silly IMO but I guess it’s just what you’re used to.
 
Usbek_de_Perse said:
The Catholic Church has a rich intellectual tradition that includes the study of languages such as Hebrew, Greek and Latin (among others). What gives?
Click to expand...
I don’t think this is necessarily relevant - I once did a home-study Latin course that provided an audio tape for pronunciation purposes, and all of the LAtin words were pronounced with a very evident (American) southern drawl!!! 😉 It sounded so silly!
 
PerfectTiming said:
Not just Anglicans, I think it must be a UK thing. We always say it as “hosannah” not “hosAHnnah” - the second way sounds silly IMO but I guess it’s just what you’re used to.
Click to expand...
It must be just what we’re used to, as I do believe the rest of the entire world (other languages and non-Brit English speakers) say “HosAHnna”. Just an observation.
 
Somewhere here there are threads on this topic that link to the history of the “Ay-men” pronunciation. Suffice it to say that Ay-men is an old pronunciation.

And it has nothing to do with Catholics versus Protestants. And it did not originate in the United States.
 
PerfectTiming said:
I think it is a local pronunciation thing. In the countries I’ve lived, we always said ah-men. The priest at my old parish actually used to teach us in RCIA to say ah-men rather than ay-men. I don’t like the sound of ay-men, I don’t know why.

Not just Anglicans, I think it must be a UK thing. We always say it as “hosannah” not “hosAHnnah” - the second way sounds silly IMO but I guess it’s just what you’re used to.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I have never heard Hosannah pronounced any other way.
 
For what it’s worth, this is what Wikipedia says about the matter:
In English, the word amen has two primary pronunciations, ah-men (/ɑːˈmɛn/) or ay-men (/eɪˈmɛn/), with minor additional variation in emphasis (the two syllables may be equally stressed instead of placing primary stress on the second). The Oxford English Dictionary gives “eɪ’mεn, often ɑː’mɛn”.
Click to expand...
The ah-men pronunciation is used in performances of classical music, in churches with more formalized rituals and liturgy and in liberal to mainline Protestant denominations, as well as almost every Jewish congregation, in line with modern Hebrew pronunciation. The ay-men pronunciation, a product of the Great Vowel Shift dating to the 15th century, is associated with Irish Protestantism and conservative Evangelical denominations generally, and is the pronunciation typically used in gospel music. Fowler, in his Modern English Usage (2nd ed., s.v. ‘amen’), quotes from Essays and Studies (1960), “Ay-men is probably a comparatively modern Anglican invention of about a hundred years’ standing. Roman Catholics, one is glad to note, on the whole retain the English āmen.”
Click to expand...
Personally, I use both pronunciations depending on the context. If I am chanting “amen” during mass, it’s always “ah-men.” If I am expressing agreement with something I’ve heard in a secular context, it’s usually “ay-men.” If I am whispering assent to a priest’s homily, it could be either.
 
I’ve heard the pronunciation “ho-san-nah” but only as a noun in ordinary conversation, e.g. “Did you hear all those hosannas?”

In mass, I’ve always heard it intoned as “ho-sah-na.” Anyway, in my parish, we often chant the Sanctus in Latin, so there’s no controversy that it should be “-sah-.”🙂
 
nonsumd said:
I’ve heard the pronunciation “ho-san-nah” but only as a noun in ordinary conversation, e.g. “Did you hear all those hosannas?”

In mass, I’ve always heard it intoned as “ho-sah-na.” Anyway, in my parish, we often chant the Sanctus in Latin, so there’s no controversy that it should be “-sah-.”🙂
Click to expand...
Ah but so do we and we still don’t say it like that. 😉
 
PerfectTiming said:
Ah but so do we and we still don’t say it like that. 😉
Click to expand...
So, I guess, we even pronounce our Latin and Greek according to our native accents! This is very interesting. I first became aware of this w/ the Latin audio tape w/ the pronounced southern accent, and now this info.

So (to the OP) , the study of Latin, Greek and Hebrew doesn’t seem to have much influence on our pronunciation deviations.
 
Usbek_de_Perse said:
I never quite get this. Why do Catholics say AY-MEN, instead of Ah-MEN?

The Catholic Church has a rich intellectual tradition that includes the study of languages such as Hebrew, Greek and Latin (among others). What gives?

Sorry, but when I hear AY-MEN, I think of backwoods camp meetings.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
You say poTAHto I say poTAto, you say ToMAHto I say ToMAto,
Catholics say AYmen and AHmen in English (Latin is alway AH-men)
And by the may, those brothers do not all say AY-men. Just watch the documentary on the Father of Gospel Music, Thomas Dorsey, “Say AH-men Somebody”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top