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I have a couple of random questions.
We will soon have the Fighter- Mage, or Blade singer, or the name that has been chosen- the Magus in the ultimate Magic book.
Now how is Magus pronounced? Is the G prounounced like the G in Gun, or the J in Jack?
What is the relationship if any between the words Mage, Magus, and Magi?
I assume the Magi is the plural of Magus..
Thanks
I have a couple of random questions.
We will soon have the Fighter- Mage, or Blade singer, or the name that has been chosen- the Magus in the ultimate Magic book.
Now how is Magus pronounced? Is the G prounounced like the G in Gun, or the J in Jack?
What is the relationship if any between the words Mage, Magus, and Magi?
I assume the Magi is the plural of Magus..Thanks
Magus is latin for Mage. Magi is the plural of Magus.
Also, all three can do this:
So if you look at Jason Rice's link, it's "may" "gus".
Rhymes with Drow?
Just kidding.
I've heard it pronounced with a long or short "a" depending on the speaker.
Why would it not be pronounced like the G in mage?? I have always heard the word pronounced; Maa-Jus.
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Why would it not be pronounced like the G in mage?? I have always heard the word pronounced; Maa-Jus.
It's a Latin word (for mage, as noted above); there are no soft g's in classical Latin. People who took/were forced to take Latin in school tend to nerd out when people flub all those commonly mispronounced terms. :3 (or pronounce them in ecclesiastical Latin form anyway)
Like the old Latin greeting 'ave' actually being 'ah-way' and Caesar being pronounced 'kai-sar' (like the German guy in the pickelhaube) and whatnot, there's no end to modern sources bungling the pronunciation of a tongue that hasn't been a living language for so many hundreds of years. The horror! ;)
To rhyme with Orange.
May Gus sit by your side?
Naah, I stick to a mixture of ma(ster) and goose (pronounced in a less stretched way, well shorter) - to give it a more ancient touch.
Go Latin! And the Germans had a Kaiser, and I am not sure, but the guys with the Pickelhaube were in faishon a little later ;-)
Ruyan.
Oxford English Dictionary says "May Gus".
Merriam-Webster says "May Gus".
American Heritage says "May Gus".
(Well, schwa instead of a pure short u, in each case.)
None offer an alternative pronunciation.
I don't have a Macquarie or a Canadian Oxford, but that should be as definitive as possible for UK and US pronunciation.
Okay, what we really need is an official IPA transcription to sort out all this minor discrepancies, but I've heard both (in IPA) |m3igIs| and |mægIs| in equal usage each. I have also heard "may-juss", but that just irks me.
Since it was brought up earlier, if you wanted to go full-on classical Latin (ie. Ancient Roman pronunciation) it would be (IPA) |magus| which is mah-goose (where "ah" is as in "heart" and "goose" is, well, like the word goose).
Boy was I a linguistics major waiting to happen...!
EDIT: To answer the OP's query, magi is indeed the plural of magus (masculine first declension nominative plural, to be precise) and "mage" is actually an Anglicization of magus.
Also, it should be noted that magus is actually a Romanization of the ancient Greek word "magos".
Magus: "Mah - Goose" (singular)
Magi: "Mah - Gee" (plural) "Gee" - hard "G" rhyming with "Key", not a "J" sound.
Seriously.
I always said May jus myself.
Mah jus is the Appalachian pronounciation. :-)
I'm Appalachian and I still pronounce "Magus" as "May Gus," but perhaps with more emphasis on the first syllable.
Being from West Virginia and never having heard it spoken, I commonly butchered the pronunciation of the word "genre" though.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I always said May jus myself.
Mah jus is the Appalachian pronounciation. :-)
I'm Appalachian and I still pronounce "Magus" as "May Gus," but perhaps with more emphasis on the first syllable.
Being from West Virginia and never having heard it spoken, I commonly butchered the pronunciation of the word "genre" though.
'jen-ree'? :-)
I've always heard both May-ji and Mah-ji for Magi, and May-jus for Magus.
Though now that I think about it, the Ferengi call their leader Nagus. I think they used Nah gus, though I recall hearing Nay gus as well.
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Thank you all for you help and suggestions.
I had forgotten about the difference between Ecclesiastical Latin and Classical Latin. I learned my Latin at a boarding school, (a little like Hogwarts without the wands and magically animated staircases and portraits and stuff) from a Master (teacher) who looked like Abraham Lincoln and hunted ducks, and deer. His dog, tanker, would nose her way through the door at the beginning of every class, and would check everyone out by giving them a sniff. Then tanker would go to the door give a woof, and be let out. A few minutes later, I remember I would see tanker through the window, outside investigating the trees flowerbeds etc.
I also remember my Latin teacher had a "unique" way of getting our attention should we fall asleep. He would slide the eraser along the tray at the bottom of the blackboard, collecting the chalk dust, and then turn suddenly and throw the dust ladened eraser at a sleeping student. He threw it like a knife, and it would fly spinning end over end, then land with the flat side (ladened with chalk dust) smack onto someone’s blue blazer and leave a chalk mark. Funnily enough the girls were never a target of his eraser throwing.
He was a wonderful teacher who brought Latin alive for us. He would teach us about the language, what life was like in Rome, what the legions were like etc.
Oh he also taught a class on science fiction literature- where we had to read books by Orwell, Isaac Asimov, Jules Vern, etc.
I think he would be a bit disappointed that I have forgotten some of my declensions and conjugations.
Again thanks.... I do happen to like Ma-goose as a definite replacement for the term "Gish"
You're welcome...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/magus
Magus: "Mah - Goose" (singular)
Magi: "Mah - Gee" (plural) "Gee" - hard "G" rhyming with "Key", not a "J" sound.
Seriously.
Tha's not yer goose, that's mah goose! :P
Also, it should be noted that magus is actually a Romanization of the ancient Greek word "magos".
And possibly from Hebrew or Akkadian: Magg (pronounced like "mug of coffee" only slightly longer).
There was a Rav-Magg (translated as Archmage) in the court of the king of Babylon- old testament, Jeremiah 39: 3 , 13So the "archmage" (Rav-Magg) was the minister in charge of magical affairs in the empire of Babylon.
I found it here in an English translation (they leave the word as is without translation)
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1139.htm
Sadly, other English translations I found (including King James) seem to think Rabmag is a proper name, but to a Hebrew reader it is very obviously not. Nor are the other names in that sentence, they are all job titles.
Okay, what we really need is an official IPA transcription to sort out all this minor discrepancies
Oxford English Dictionary: ˈmeɪgəs
Random House Dictionary via Dictionary.com: ˈmeɪgəsCollins English Dictionary via Dictionary.com: ˈmeɪɡəs
Wiktionary: ˈmeɪɡəs
Gah. Okay, using ' for the primary stress indicator, I for the small-caps I, and @ for schwa:
Oxford English Dictionary: 'meIg@s
Random House Dictionary via Dictionary.com: 'meIg@s
Collins English Dictionary via Dictionary.com: 'meIg@s
Wiktionary: 'meIg@s
The Arabic word for Magus is Majus (long u, and a j), and the Sanskrit is Maga, hard G, if you want more etymologies. However, by dint of classical education, I say Ma-Gus, hard g.
So whatever floats your boat...
Rhymes with Au Jus.
Whichever it is, Magus is weak against the Masamune, and drops his defense when he starts casting DarkMatter. And has one of the best themes ever ;)
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Morphail you bring up a very interesting point. I will probably get jumped on for this, but I think the King James Bible was published in 1611, but I am not completely sure.
There are some people who think, that scholars today who have better access to and a wider variety of sources to draw upon, then their predecessors, can produce a more "accurate" translation of the bible into English.
And of course depending on the number of "Skill ranks" you have in your "Linguistics" skill, and the number of languages you have on "your character sheet" like Latin, Greek, Cuneiform, Egyptian, Aramaic, Sumerian etc, that you can "read and write" in, the better able you are to critically examine the quality of the translation of a text.
I myself probably have at most 1-2 ranks in my linguistics skill. I can speak and read English (its my first language); I can stumble in Spanish, limp in Portuguese, and ask where is the toilet in French. My Latin is only dimly remembered.
Again thanks for all of your thoughts
Is pronounced Magus*.
*
Morphail you bring up a very interesting point. I will probably get jumped on for this, but I think the King James Bible was published in 1611, but I am not completely sure.
There are some people who think, that scholars today who have better access to and a wider variety of sources to draw upon, then their predecessors, can produce a more "accurate" translation of the bible into English.
I totally agree. I have the convenience of reading modern Hebrew that is rebuilt from the biblical Hebrew by professional linguists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Linguistics is a science, and its power grows exponentially like any other science. I have a friend who is an ?assurologist? (I mean he studies Assyria)and you can hand him a cuneiform tablet and he will read it out loud in proper Akkadian*. How cool is that? (in a nerdy kind of cool)
[sorry for the thread derail]
*He will then yell at you for taking a precious artifact out of the museum
May Gish
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Now how is Magus pronounced? Is the G prounounced like the G in Gun, or the J in Jack?What is the relationship if any between the words Mage, Magus, and Magi?
I assume the Magi is the plural of Magus..Thanks
Magus is the G like "gun."
Mage and magi use the "Jack" pronounciation, though.
The difference between a mage and magus is none. Magi is the plural of magus, though it would be correct to use it as the plural of mage as well.
Okay, what we really need is an official IPA transcription to sort out all this minor discrepanciesOxford English Dictionary: ˈmeɪgəs
Random House Dictionary via Dictionary.com: ˈmeɪgəs
Collins English Dictionary via Dictionary.com: ˈmeɪɡəs
Wiktionary: ˈmeɪɡəsGah. Okay, using ' for the primary stress indicator, I for the small-caps I, and @ for schwa:
Oxford English Dictionary: 'meIg@s
Random House Dictionary via Dictionary.com: 'meIg@s
Collins English Dictionary via Dictionary.com: 'meIg@s
Wiktionary: 'meIg@s
Haha, I wanted to use a schwa originally, but it wouldn't work! (And using an "@" sign, how clever!) Still, a closed e seems like a weird transcription, since it's more common to slide from an open vowel in the diphthong, but I defer judgment to the dictionaries, where it should be!
So, it's basically "MAY-guss"; "ay" as in "chaos", "g" as in "gun" and an unstressed "uh". I think we can all agree on the pronunciation of "m" and "s".
Thank you, see! Very illuminating!
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Morphail, that is very cool. Even more derailing :D
Then he would take me into the museum and sign us in at the guard station. Then we would go to the Dinosaur exhibit. What fun.
After that we would go to the Mesopotamia exhibit. I remember I liked it because there were on the wall, life sized silhouettes of how tall an average man and woman was back during those times. I liked them because at 7 or so, I was as tall as an average man in ancient Sumer. I also remember a small film they had running in one of the exhibits.
It first showed a burial pit being excavated archeologically. Then it showed clay tablets with cuneiform. Next I remembered there was a little Claymation film about the story of Enkidu and Gilgamesh. I don’t know why but it fascinated me.
Much later in college, while I was in Art school for photography, I was very lucky and got to do an internship in the photo labs at the Natural History museum. We photographed all sorts of things- Austrolopithicalus Skulls, Books, specimens (birds bugs etc). I remember, as I was going to move a skull slightly for some better lighting, the first thing that was drummed into me by my boss was, DON’T TUCH THE DELICATE ARTIFACTS let the scientists touch them and break them.
I was doing my best to be careful with the words I chose with my earlier post, first because I didn’t want to insult someone, and secondly when you tread near religious beliefs, I find it is often best to tread lightly.