How do you pronounce 'Amen'?

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When we sing the Gloria at our church it always ends with ah-men…it just would sound “hicky” if it ended with ay-men…having said that I say ay-men most other times because I was Pentecostal and that was the norm…it seems more a southern thang…like southerners will say ay-rab instead of arab…the town I live is Havana…black people call it Hay-vana…a town in Georgia…Cairo…as in Egypt…yet down here in the south it’s pronounced Cay-ro…there’s probably many regional differences right across the US
 
Peebo said:
it seems more a southern thang…like southerners will say ay-rab instead of arab…the town I live is Havana…black people call it Hay-vana…a town in Georgia…Cairo…as in Egypt…yet down here in the south it’s pronounced Cay-ro…there’s probably many regional differences right across the US
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There are a lot of regional pronunciation differences for sure for many words.

But it would seems as if the liturgy is supposed to be in the vernacular, “Ay-men” would be the proper way to say it, at least for southern Catholics.
 
I’m not sure I ever answered this question.

I say both. It depends on the context.

When I was growing up in1960s California, I learned both at home and at school to use the long A sound when speaking in English and the “ah” sound when using Latin. That’s how the sisters at my school spoke. And that is how the American born priests in my parish spoke. (I can’t really remember how the foreign born priests pronounced it when speaking in English but probably more of an “eh” sound.)

I grew up associating the “ah” pronunciation with people who lived on the East Coast of the United States, people who spoke with upper class English accents, and liturgical protestants.

There were a lot of discussions on the “proper” pronunciation of “Amen” here at Catholic Answers over the years, many with people shouting that it is a Catholic versus Protestant thing. I had actually saved some links but those links don’t work now. I’m guessing the conversations were not all carried over during the forum switchover. For Catholics, the differences in pronunciation seem to be VERY regional.

As far as "ay’ being a protestant innovation, that is true in as much as Protestants probably normalized English translations of Latin prayers. But as to the pronunciation of words in English (including “amen”) google “the great vowel shift” for info on how “ah” turned into “eh” and/or “ay”.
 
Hebrew pronunciation: Ah-mayn.

Greek: ?

Latin… Um. Yeah. There lies a story.

Every country in Europe pronounces Latin differently. Most of these descend from the accents that Latin-speakers had, back in the days of the Roman Empire. There are also pronunciations derived from what academics theorized about the original pronunciation, because academics can introduce things like that.

“Ay-men” is derived from one of the English in England pronunciations for Latin. Not the one you will hear now, but the one that was used in the 1700’s and 1800’s.

And yes, the distribution of this pronunciation in the US varied, based on settlement patterns and local churches.
 
maybe we are “beating a dead horse” ; in the US NE we say Aymen, not Ahmen

either way, as long as you say Amen w/ a sincere heart; i am optimistic it is OK (oh-kay) with God
 
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In the UK it’s usually pronounced ah-men. As a side note, some prayerbooks written in the vernacular (for example the Sarum Primer of 1516) didn’t have the word Amen to end prayers but simply a translation, ‘So be it’.
 
I grew up saying ay-men but now say ah-men

Question: what do they say in Ireland?
 
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phil19034 said:
Question: what do they say in Ireland?
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When I visited Ireland I heard both,

It’s my understanding that Ireland is probably where “ay-men” originated and it spread to other English speaking countries from there.
 
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i was taught to say “Ay-men”. Still do in my private prayer. “Ah-men” was for saying in church with the congregation, especially since most cantors and choirs would use “ahhh” not “ayyyy”.
 
People in the south say Aymen. But with the influx of Hispanic priests, we’re ging back to Ahmen.
 
“Ah-men”, which I think is how most people here (Chicago) say it, but it’s not rare to hear “ay-men”.
 
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