How do you pronounce "Diospyros" correctly in American English?

[jekirk]

Hi all,

I’m trying to figure out the correct pronunciation of the word *"Diospyros"* (as in the plant genus). I prefer *American English*, but I’m also curious if there are *British English* variants too.

Is there more than one accepted pronunciation?
Something like how the word *"route"* in American English can be pronounced either *"root"* or *"rout"*. Does "diospyros" have similar alternatives?

 

[probus]

Hello @jekirk and welcome to the forum. Scientific terms like diospyros are not used in common parlance and often have more than one accepted pronunciation in the scientific community.

Also please correct the information in your profile.You do not appear to be be a native English speaker, nor in Antilles.

 

[jekirk]

Hello @jekirk and welcome to the forum. S ientific terms like diospyros are not used in common parlance and often have more than one accepted pronunciation in the scientific community.

Also please correct the information in your profile.You do not appear to be be a native English speaker, nor in Antilles.

You mentioned that I don't appear to be native — could you clarify? I'm genuinely curious.

Also, you said scientific terms like *Diospyros* often have more than one accepted pronunciation. Is there a citation or example you can share for that?

 

[jutfrank]

Rules of the conventions of pronouncing binomial nomenclature, whose words are all derived from Greek and Latin, would have the stress on the antepenultimate syllable, diospyros, as that's how it would be in the original Greek. Also following the rules, the 'i' would be an 'ee' sound, not an 'ai' sound, as it's part of the suffix 'dio'.

Unsurprisingly, however, most native English speakers aren't completely familiar with the rules of Greek pronunciation. Many people would naturally place the stress on the penultimate syllable, diospyros, since that's also a very common way to pronounce Greek-derived words. To make things harder, many scientific terms such as this are very rarely used, even less so in speech, and so even a professional botanist might never have heard anyone actually say a word out loud before. For this, it sometimes never happens that there becomes a standard pronunciation even in the scientific community. The two scientists in the clips below each pronounce it in very different ways.

How to Pronounce English Naturally | YouGlish

Struggling with English pronunciation? YouGlish uses real people speaking real English to help you master tricky sounds. No more dictionary confusion!

youglish.com

 

[Amigos4]

Welcome to the forum, @jekirk!

AmE pronunciation of diospyros is dee-oh-spy-rohse.

A citation can be found here.

 

[probus]

This thread is locked until @jekirk corrects the false information in their profile.

 

[probus]

As @jekirk has now corrected their location to Germany I have unlocked this thread.