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When I first came across the Byzantine Empire in books I assumed that it was pronounced as it was spelled (i.e. bih-zan-tin or baɪ zən tɪn in IPA). However I have since heard many people, including history academics, choosing to exclusively pronounce it quite differently: as biz-in-teen.

This doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me, as the capital (Constantinople) has often been referred to as Byzantium (such as in the famous WB Yeats Poem). How would this even be pronounced? biz-in-te-e-um?

Looking at the etymology of the word sheds little light for me: bȳzantīnus. I am assuming this is Geek (but I'm afraid Greek is Greek to me)

Any sources I could find which describe how to pronounce Byzantine list both methods (usually placing baɪ-zən-tɪn second).

Notwithstanding common contemporary parlance, which method is likely to be the most historically accurate reflection of how denizens of the Byzantine Empire would have referred to themselves (other than as Romans of course)?

Stumbler
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    Βυζάντιον, the Greek name for Byzantium, was pronounced in koiné Greek /byːdzán.ti.on/, the "υ" in the Greek being similar to the French "u" in "une", a sort of middle ground between a short "i" and an "u" and so rendered in IPA as "y". – Carlos Martin Jul 27 '19 at 10:24
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    Language isn't normative - on what basis would you choose the "correct" pronunciation? I think you're really asking how the Byzantines would have identified their country, but that's not the same as "correct". We don't refer to most countries by the sounds that they use to refer to themselves. - try telling a German that they are pronouncing "Deutschland" incorrectly. The word "America" is pronounced differently in different parts of the country. – MCW Jul 27 '19 at 10:46
  • @MarkC.Wallace that's a point... but if one was to pronounce "deutschland" there would only be one correct way to pronounce it, and that would be the way Germans do. In the same way that when Enlgish speakers pronounce the composer Wagner as wag-ner instead of vɑːɡnər, they are incorrect) – Stumbler Jul 27 '19 at 10:55
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    It has been years since I studied German dialect, but my memory says that the Deutschland is pronounced differently in the North than in Bavaria. And "America" is pronounced differently in the North than the South. Language is formative, not normative. – MCW Jul 27 '19 at 11:00
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    @MarkC.Wallace: In truth, everything spoken from Rotterdam to Berlin to Vienna (and maybe East London) is "German dialects" (but don't tell my Dad I said that), though with a wide variety in pronunciations. High German vs Low German is just the beginning. – Pieter Geerkens Jul 27 '19 at 11:49
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    To answer the question in the last sentence: they referred to themselves as "Romans". – Alex Jul 27 '19 at 15:37
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it might fit better on one of the English Language SEs? – LаngLаngС Jul 27 '19 at 18:40
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    @LangLangC Byzantine is hardly an English word is it? I mean hypothetically I could ask it in Greek language stack exchange, but certainly the term "Byzantium" is historical, so I'd think that a historical angle is one most likely to produce an answer, if one is possible. – Stumbler Jul 27 '19 at 21:01
  • It is (present tense) an English word, as evidenced by the English dictionary entry for it – that by coincidence should also answer quite a bit of the Q? – LаngLаngС Jul 27 '19 at 21:06
  • @LangLangC there's dictionary entries for quiche, entrepreneur, cliche, and RSVP in the "English" dictionary as well, despite all these being French terms. The answer for something like "why is a gladiator called a gladiator" is not an English question, because it is based on the term gladius, so it's either a historical question, or a Latin question. Similarly I'm not interested in what people in the English speaking world tend to pronounce this word, I'm looking for what one could determine is the correct way. Notwithstanding that it's not really the most important question in the world. – Stumbler Jul 27 '19 at 21:16
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    I think, not sure, there's a distinction between the noun, as in "Byzantine Empire" and the adjective byzantine as in incomprehensibly bureaucratic. I confess to ignorance of IPA, but have always pronounced the first as "By-zan-tyne", but as "biz-an-teen" in "The legal process to appeal is byzantine in its complexity*". But I could have been wrong most of my life. ;-) – TheHonRose Jul 27 '19 at 21:43
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    This isn't a history question. It's a language question. If you are asking how it is pronounced in English, the OED says "bi-zan-tine" or "biz-an-tine" are both acceptable. If you're asking how it is pronounced in some other language, like Greek, you'll need to check a Greek dictionary. – Gort the Robot Jul 28 '19 at 02:07
  • @StevenBurnap remember to vote to close https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/35526/why-did-the-term-byzantine-empire-enter-common-usage-instead-of-eastern-roman for being a question about language. You know, for consistency sake. – Stumbler Jul 28 '19 at 11:06
  • The question you references is about when the term came into use, which fits under history. You might try editing the question to focus on the historical aspects, removing the primary focus of “what is correct now”, which is not a question for this site. As for the citizens of the eastern Roman Empire, they called themselves the Greek version of “Roman”, and never used a term etymologically related to “Byzantine”. – Gort the Robot Jul 28 '19 at 18:24
  • See the history of the name – Gort the Robot Jul 28 '19 at 19:03

1 Answers1

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I don't know if it is pronounced "Buy-zanteen" or "Biz-anteen".

It is also important to spell it correctly.

When writing about the ancient city state, it should be spelled Byzantine.

But when writing about the middle ages it should be spelled "Byzantine" with quotation marks, as in, for example, "the Eastern Roman or "Byzantine" Empire".

How did the natives of the medieval Empire pronounce Byzantium? They pronounced it "Romania". And I think they pronounced Byzantine "Romaikos".

MAGolding
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