pronunciation - Why is quixotic pronounced as it is?


Since "quixotic" was coined with Don Quixote as its basis, why is it pronounced "kwicks-OTT-ick" when it should by rights/origin be pronounced "Key-HO-tick"?


It even sounds more onomatopoeiatic the latter way, as it resembles in its sonorous qualities "chaotic," which suits the subject.


Or is trying to make sense of English pronunciation a quixotic quest?



Answer



It appears to be dialect issue. Its not a word that comes up much in daily conversation, but the few people I know who use it pronounce it closer to your second (your supposedly "correct") way. More like KEY-hot-ick (emphasis on the first syllable, short o in the middle). However, there are comments below to the effect that your first pronounciation is reported as the "correct" one in the OED, and is understood as such in the UK.


The people I have heard use it are American Midlands dialect speakers (both Northern and Southern varieties). I suppose its possible that your dialect area (from your user info, I'm guessing California English?) tends to use the more normal Anglicized version.


Probably the reason for that first reported usage is that it is the pronunciation an English speaker would naively expect for that assemblage of letters, in the absence of any other information. The most common word starting with "qui" is "quick", which is pronounced with the same "kwi", and an "X" in English usually produces a "ks" sound. So if you didn't know the word derived from the name of a character in a Spanish novel, you'd expect it to be pronounced your first way, not in a Spanish-influenced way.


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