Hello all!
I've recently been researching the pronunciation of Greek-derived words in English, and I've found an odd anomaly. Most words with the plural ending -ata are stressed on the antepenult, such as lémma ~ lémmata, schéma ~ schémata and teratóma ~ teratómata. This is what would be expected from the stress rules of Latin (I believe most or all of these words came through Latin before entering English). But the word "stigmata" is often pronounced with the stress on the penult and the a broadened: stigma ~ stigmáta /stɪgˈmɑˑtɐ/.1 I'm wondering why that is. The word is probably most common in religious or theological contexts, in reference to the wounds of Christ, so at first I wondered if it was supposed to be closer to the original Greek pronunciation, but according to Wiktionary, the stress is on the antepenult in Greek as well.2 Do students at seminary use some unique system of Greek accentuation, or is this a simple matter of ignorance of the correct position of the stress that has now become entrenched with time and usage? If nobody knows of a reason, I suppose I can just put it down to people encountering the word mainly in text, not knowing which syllable to stress, and choosing the penult because it sounds better to them.
References:
1. http://www.merriam-webster.com/audio.php?file=stigma03&word=stigmata&text=%5Cstig-ˈmä-tə%2C%20ˈstig-mə-tə%5C
2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/στίγμα#Ancient_Greek
(PS: to any mods, should questions like this about the history of pronunciation of an English word go here or in the Etymology/History/Linguistics forum?)
I've recently been researching the pronunciation of Greek-derived words in English, and I've found an odd anomaly. Most words with the plural ending -ata are stressed on the antepenult, such as lémma ~ lémmata, schéma ~ schémata and teratóma ~ teratómata. This is what would be expected from the stress rules of Latin (I believe most or all of these words came through Latin before entering English). But the word "stigmata" is often pronounced with the stress on the penult and the a broadened: stigma ~ stigmáta /stɪgˈmɑˑtɐ/.1 I'm wondering why that is. The word is probably most common in religious or theological contexts, in reference to the wounds of Christ, so at first I wondered if it was supposed to be closer to the original Greek pronunciation, but according to Wiktionary, the stress is on the antepenult in Greek as well.2 Do students at seminary use some unique system of Greek accentuation, or is this a simple matter of ignorance of the correct position of the stress that has now become entrenched with time and usage? If nobody knows of a reason, I suppose I can just put it down to people encountering the word mainly in text, not knowing which syllable to stress, and choosing the penult because it sounds better to them.
References:
1. http://www.merriam-webster.com/audio.php?file=stigma03&word=stigmata&text=%5Cstig-ˈmä-tə%2C%20ˈstig-mə-tə%5C
2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/στίγμα#Ancient_Greek
(PS: to any mods, should questions like this about the history of pronunciation of an English word go here or in the Etymology/History/Linguistics forum?)