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How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"? In "Mesoamerica"?

-- Richard

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On 2025-08-30 16:54:58 +0000, Richard Tobin said:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"?

as /s/

In "Mesoamerica"?

as /z/
--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 38 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

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Verily, in article <108vad2$1v2p$1@artemis.inf.ed.ac.uk>, did richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk deliver unto us this message:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"? In "Mesoamerica"?

-- Richard

They're both unvocalized /s/ for me. I'm American.
--
Doctor Who: The Mind of Evil (Third Doctor)
Watch party on Saturday, 1:00 PST https://discord.gg/mw4QzndY?event=1408952064645795852
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Melissa Hollingsworth hat am 30.08.2025 um 19:48 geschrieben:

Verily, in article <108vad2$1v2p$1@artemis.inf.ed.ac.uk>, did richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk deliver unto us this message:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"? In "Mesoamerica"?

-- Richard

They're both unvocalized /s/ for me. I'm American.

Please explain "unvocalized /s/" to foreigners like me. Do you mean /z/
as in zero?
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In article <108vnv8$2rg5r$1@dont-email.me>,
Silvano <Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it> wrote:

Please explain "unvocalized /s/" to foreigners like me. Do you mean /z/
as in zero?

/s/ is unvocalized, /z/ is vocalized.

The OED comments (under meso-):

sporadic instances of spellings in mezo- (see, for example, mesotype
n. and mesozeugma n.) show clearly that the tendency for the
sibilant to become voiced intervocalically has operated throughout
the history of the form,

I have /s/ in Mesopotamia and /z/ in Mesoamerica, which may just
reflect how I first heard them, but may also be because the former
was just a place name while the latter was obviously a compound of
Meso- and America.

-- Richard
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On 2025-08-30 10:54, Richard Tobin wrote:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"? In "Mesoamerica"?

's' in both. Never 'z'.
--
Life is like an analogy.

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On 31/08/2025 9:13 a.m., Richard Tobin wrote:

In article <108vnv8$2rg5r$1@dont-email.me>,
Silvano <Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it> wrote:

Please explain "unvocalized /s/" to foreigners like me. Do you mean /z/
as in zero?

/s/ is unvocalized, /z/ is vocalized.

The OED comments (under meso-):

sporadic instances of spellings in mezo- (see, for example, mesotype
n. and mesozeugma n.) show clearly that the tendency for the
sibilant to become voiced intervocalically has operated throughout
the history of the form,

I have /s/ in Mesopotamia and /z/ in Mesoamerica, which may just
reflect how I first heard them, but may also be because the former
was just a place name while the latter was obviously a compound of
Meso- and America.

-- Richard

Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary (Jones XVIII,2011) has pronunciations
for: mesoderm/-al/-ic, mesolect/-al, mesomorph, meson, Mesopotamia,
mesotron, mesozoic, as well as a head for the prefix as a whole (meso-).
In every case they allow both /s/ and /z/ pronunciations, for both sides
of the pond.

Kenyon & Knott (Pronunciation of American English, 1944) had /s/-only
for Meso-Gothic, Mesopotamia and Mesozoic, but allowed /z/ as an
alternative for mesothorium.
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richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) wrote or quoted:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"? In "Mesoamerica"?

|meso- comb. form
|with stress-neutral suffix -ames +O-e / -amez-, -ami-Es-,
|-ami-Ez rCu -+O
|
|Mesopotamia -imes +O p+O -eteim i_+O / -imesp +O-erCo-
|
Wells

e Well's [e] is more open than the [e] in IPA, but not as open as [+c]
-a (in prefixes) stress of level undefined (= -e, -i, as appropriate)
/ for each region, it is the main pron. when not behind a slash "/"
, the comma separates different pronunciations
rCu separates BrE (left) from AmE (right)
_ (underscore) the two syllables might be merged by some speakers
rCo a syllable of a stress pattern / a syllable already given before


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On Sat, 30 Aug 2025 19:07:45 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<me@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 2025-08-30 16:54:58 +0000, Richard Tobin said:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"?

as /s/

In "Mesoamerica"?

as /z/

Me too.

For me, the first syllable in Mesopotamia is "mess", while the first
syllable in Mesoamerica is "meez".
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: alt.usage.english

Le 31/08/2025 |a 05:51, Steve Hayes a |-crit :

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

On 2025-08-30 16:54:58 +0000, Richard Tobin said:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"?

as /s/

In "Mesoamerica"?

as /z/

Me too.

For me, the first syllable in Mesopotamia is "mess", while the first
syllable in Mesoamerica is "meez".

Same here. (Mess-o'-America sounds Trumpian.)

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Ar an t-aon|| l|i is triochad de m|! L||nasa, scr|!obh Hibou:

Le 31/08/2025 |a 05:51, Steve Hayes a |-crit :

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

On 2025-08-30 16:54:58 +0000, Richard Tobin said:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"?

as /s/

In "Mesoamerica"?

as /z/

Me too.

For me, the first syllable in Mesopotamia is "mess", while the first syllable in Mesoamerica is "meez".

Same here. (Mess-o'-America sounds Trumpian.)

Fourthed.
--
rCyAs I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stoutrCO
(C. Moore)
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Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

In article <108vnv8$2rg5r$1@dont-email.me>,
Silvano <Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it> wrote:

Please explain "unvocalized /s/" to foreigners like me. Do you mean /z/
as in zero?

/s/ is unvocalized, /z/ is vocalized.

The OED comments (under meso-):

sporadic instances of spellings in mezo- (see, for example, mesotype
n. and mesozeugma n.) show clearly that the tendency for the
sibilant to become voiced intervocalically has operated throughout
the history of the form,

I have /s/ in Mesopotamia and /z/ in Mesoamerica, which may just
reflect how I first heard them, but may also be because the former
was just a place name while the latter was obviously a compound of
Meso- and America.

Not just a place name. The Meso in Mesopotamia is a Middle too.
(from meso, and potamos = river)
So it is the land in the middle, between the two big rivers.

Jan



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In article <1rhxc3t.1w0wmy71abbs9fN%nospam@de-ster.demon.nl>,
J. J. Lodder <jjlxa32@xs4all.nl> wrote:

I have /s/ in Mesopotamia and /z/ in Mesoamerica, which may just
reflect how I first heard them, but may also be because the former
was just a place name while the latter was obviously a compound of
Meso- and America.

Not just a place name. The Meso in Mesopotamia is a Middle too.
(from meso, and potamos = river)
So it is the land in the middle, between the two big rivers.

Yes, of course I know that. But I didn't know it when I first heard
(or read) the word as a child.

-- Richard
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Verily, in article <108vnv8$2rg5r$1@dont-email.me>, did Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it deliver unto us this message:

Please explain "unvocalized /s/" to foreigners like me. Do you mean /z/
as in zero?

I mean the unvocalized /s/ sound. The vocalized version is /z/.

Now that I'm thinking more, though, I've heard other Americans say "Mesoamerican" with a /z/ for the s.
--
Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos (Third Doctor)
Watch party on Saturday, 1:00 PST https://discord.gg/GPf2xRyq?event=1411689588782796830
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The True Melissa hat am 31.08.2025 um 14:35 geschrieben:

Verily, in article <108vnv8$2rg5r$1@dont-email.me>, did Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it deliver unto us this message:

Please explain "unvocalized /s/" to foreigners like me. Do you mean /z/
as in zero?

I mean the unvocalized /s/ sound. The vocalized version is /z/.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Your strange use of "vocalized" led me
to think you were talking about something like <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-vocalization>, but I couldn't imagine
what it could be.

In normal usage in phonetics, /s/ is voiceless and /z/ is voiced.
Nothing to do with a vocalization, which is also the adding of vowels to
a text written in consonants only.

More precisely: /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative and /z/ is a
voiced alveolar fricative.
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Verily, in article <1091ggn$37rqv$1@dont-email.me>, did Silvano@noncisonopernessuno.it deliver unto us this message:

In normal usage in phonetics, /s/ is voiceless and /z/ is voiced.
Nothing to do with a vocalization, which is also the adding of vowels to
a text written in consonants only.

That's interesting. My undergrad linguistics class used "voiced" and "vocalized" interchangeably.
--
Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos (Third Doctor)
Watch party on Saturday, 1:00 PST https://discord.gg/GPf2xRyq?event=1411689588782796830
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Steve Hayes submitted this gripping article, maybe on Saturday:

On Sat, 30 Aug 2025 19:07:45 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<me@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 2025-08-30 16:54:58 +0000, Richard Tobin said:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"?

as /s/

In "Mesoamerica"?

as /z/

Me too.

For me, the first syllable in Mesopotamia is "mess",

Agreement this far

while the first
syllable in Mesoamerica is "meez".

Disagreement here ... "mayzo" or "maize-oh".

/dps
--
As a colleague once told me about an incoming manager,
"He does very well in a suck-up, kick-down culture."
Bill in Vancouver
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On 2025-08-31 15:52:07 +0000, Snidely said:

Steve Hayes submitted this gripping article, maybe on Saturday:

On Sat, 30 Aug 2025 19:07:45 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<me@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 2025-08-30 16:54:58 +0000, Richard Tobin said:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"?

as /s/

In "Mesoamerica"?

as /z/

Me too.
For me, the first syllable in Mesopotamia is "mess",

Agreement this far

while the first
syllable in Mesoamerica is "meez".

Disagreement here ... "mayzo" or "maize-oh".

meezo for me
--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 38 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

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Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

In article <1rhxc3t.1w0wmy71abbs9fN%nospam@de-ster.demon.nl>,
J. J. Lodder <jjlxa32@xs4all.nl> wrote:

I have /s/ in Mesopotamia and /z/ in Mesoamerica, which may just
reflect how I first heard them, but may also be because the former
was just a place name while the latter was obviously a compound of
Meso- and America.

Not just a place name. The Meso in Mesopotamia is a Middle too.
(from meso, and potamos = river)
So it is the land in the middle, between the two big rivers.

Yes, of course I know that. But I didn't know it when I first heard
(or read) the word as a child.

From what little I remember from that distant past
I guess that I assumed, then, after a few examples,
that all those meso-things must be a middle of something,
even if I didn't understand what followed.

Jan

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In article <108vad2$1v2p$1@artemis.inf.ed.ac.uk>,
Richard Tobin <richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

How do you pronounce the "s" in "Mesopotamia"? In "Mesoamerica"?

Always voiced /z/ in both. Likewise in "mesoscale", "mesocarp", or
any other use of the "meso-" prefix, I think. Also the same where the
<o-> is lost due to the stem starting with a vowel, like "mesial" or
"mesenchymal".

It might be different in words (if there are any) that start "mes-" + consonant, and that might differ if there's some other "mes-" prefix
that means something different.

-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can, wollman@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015) --- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2