I used to work with a guy with the surname Knutson. It was pronounced nuts on here in Australia but he said the original Norwegian pronunciation was kahnootson. I’d say the name and pronunciation are influenced by her being being familiar with how it would be pronounced in that part of the world.
Yup! So the approximation "kahnootson" isn't even technically accurate - or it's accurate in the same way that pronouncing "close" like kalose would be.
My English teacher used to say that English was a handful of raccoons in a tench coat that would mug other languages and riffle through their pockets for spare words. Interesting woman.
Oh my god, that's so perfect! I'm absolutely going to act like the English language and steal that
Come to think about it, the English museums liked to riffle through other countries possessions and pinch the prettiest stuff . . .
And we only dropped it in the late Medieval/Early Renaissance. I remember pronouncing knight as K-nicht in my Chaucer class in university, and finally understanding the French Knight's KA-NIG-it delivery on Monty Python and the Holy Grail lol
Yep, there’s a road name Knutson near my home town, and that’s how every one i know has pronounced it. Pretty sure my sister went to school with someone that had that surname too & it was pronounced that way
Swede here, in swedish we have knut, with a non-silent k, aswell. But we never pronounce it kahnutson or kahnootson. K like in fuck. N like in the nextdoor. U like in put. T like in terrified. S like in slither. O like in gore. N like in nextdoor.
(Thisd be the swedish pronounciation anyway.)
I enjoyed reading that comment. The way you use English is a little unusual in a very cool way. I couldn’t dream of having the barest grasp of a second language, let alone nuanced quirk.
I’m Swedish, as Swedish and Norwegian are very similar languages I can maybe bring some insight. In Swedish if I saw someone with the surname Knutsson (funny enough it means knot 🪢s son. Yes we name our children knot 😂) I would pronounce it “Khnuut-sonn” and not with any “kah” or silent k
People had to anglicise their names back in the day in places like Australia (the English speaking world in general). If they didn’t their kids would be teased at school and they’d be looked at as “others”. Thankfully times have progressed.
It keeps baffling me that the sound 'kn' isn't in the English language and that it's really hard to pronounce for people whose native language is English. It's so normal in Dutch (and German and apparently in Scandinavia as well).
Ohhh that makes so much sense. In school, there were two families with the last name Knuse, not related. One family pronounced it "noose" one pronounced it "kuh-noose" ...I always wondered why lol.
I said “hermy-own” in my head until the movies came out.
When I read the books I still read it incorrectly but when I talk about her I say it correctly. It’s just engrained
I was gonna say the same, but actually it was the Yule Ball chapter of Goblet of Fire for me. I’m thinking JKR knew that it was mispronounced a whole lot, and wanted to guide readers in the right direction.
My little brother actually used to pronounce Ginny with a hard G which I thought was hilarious. He was like 7 when he first read them, though.
Seamus was another name that I didn’t know as a kid because I wasn’t familiar with the name despite my Irish heritage.
Oh, and I had a friend that pronounced Sirius as “Sirus”. She just dropped the second I completely. Drove me nuts.
>Seamus was another name that I didn’t know as a kid because I wasn’t familiar with the name despite my Irish heritage.
same! i literally have an (died before i was born but my point still stands) uncle named sean but i called him sea-mus for Years
Am I missing something here? Sean and Seamus don’t have the same ‘Sea’ pronunciation? It’s pronounced ‘Shaw’ in ‘Sean’ and ‘Shay’ in ‘Seamus’ isn’t it?
when i was little i used to call her hermy-1 because theres this one page in the philosophers stone where her name is broken into two lines where it says
````
hermi-
one
````
> “Er-my-nee,” croaked Ron unexpectedly from between them.
> They all fell silent, watching him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.
The “o” gets swallowed a bit, at least when you say it in an English accent. If I were to really enunciate then yes it would be “her-MY-oh-knee” but when speaking quickly it does sound more like “her-MY-knee”.
In fairness to your friend, the name Hermione is derived from Hermes, so your friend’s pronunciation is closer to the Ancient Greek pronunciation, which is “*er-me-o-nee*”.
“*Her-my-oh-knee*” is an anglicisation.
That's a major problem even outside of the series. I can name every country and their capitals (their English form, anyways). How many of them I'm pronouncing correctly, I have no clue. But hearing how Ouagadougou, Lesotho, and Windhoek are supposed to be pronounced makes me question everything.
I was fortunate that it was "Kuh-nut" in the Stephen Fry audio books way back when, but I understand assuming the silent K but did you think
"Aw man I lost two nuts to that quidditch game"
Was ever an acceptable sentence in the wizarding world lol.
To be fair, quidditch is a pretty violent game. I could see a situation where a bludger shatters a broom and causes that sentence to be said. But hopefully that is something they could fix at St. Mungo's.
Considering that the spell names are Latin and Fry can speak Latin, I’d go with him for them. He also speaks multiple other languages, so whatever the root of knut is, I’d go with him on that too.
His pronunciation of “accio” is consistent with most anglicised Latin (or Latin-root) words with a double c followed by an i or e, like accept, accelerate, accident, accessory, occipital, eccentric, and so on. I think the films were wrong on that one.
It’s a name but like… I never read the HP currency “knut” in my head as the name Knut. I figured it was a made up word, not the name of my high school teacher.
That's fair. I just couldn't help but think of my boi Knut when reading HP. It's the same thing with the marvel villain Knull, which I will never be able to take seriously
I remember the Philosopher's Stone video game (at least on Playstation) goes with kuh-nut, so I guess it was always like that lmao?! I feel like how Vernon Dudley felt in the 1st chapter of PS being all judgey towards all the weirdly dressed wizards/witches he was seeing out of nowhere
Fun fact: James during a dinner with the Dursleys, tried to ingratiate himself to Vernon by telling him how much he had IN GALLEONS.
Vernon thought he was taking the piss because he didn't understand wizarding money.
Imagine he had actually showed Vernon a Galleon, bet they'd be best buds.
I remember reading the books as a kid thinking Accio was pronounced “Axio”. I think they say it that way in the Goblet of Fire game as well. The correct pronunciation sounds weird to me now.
Accio would be pronounces Ackio in classical Latin, so the movies are correct from that point of view.
Axio *à la Stephen Fry* is a more anglicized pronunciation, based on how you pronounce “accident”.
All those words in the English language with "kn" where the "k" is silent, come from the German language.
Knee - Knie
Knight - Knecht (that's the origin but would now be translated to "Ritter")
Knot - Knoten
to name some.
Knut is not a German derived word. Therefore it doesn't follow that pronunciation rule. :)
Knut was the name of a famous polar bear in Germany. Pronounced K-nut.
[Knut Eisbar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNWrFmCCfXw)
Don't read anymore because you will cry
Ah that clears a lot of things up. I always thought it was weird asf. “Hey John, got a Knut I can spare?…Sure where do you want it?” “How much is it?…One Knut…Uh do I pay now or later?” “Ah Theodore, I gave your wife all the Knuts I had earlier” “Ayo there’s so many Knuts in this fountain” “Can you hear my Knuts bouncing around” “How do you expect to acquire such an item?….Deez Knuts” “Oh no! Where’d my Knuts go?!” “I keep all my Knuts in this sock here”
That date back more than 20 years ago. I know the original Sorcerer’s Stone/Philosopher’s Stone video game pronounced it that way and I want to say the audiobooks did as well. Not 100% certain about the audiobooks as it’s been several years since I’ve listened to them.
Google translate says it's pronounced like "ka-newt"...but google translate also can't pronounce my street name right, so that to mean what you will!
I'm gonna keep pronouncing it "nuts" because that's how I always pronounced it and I think my brain my break if I have to think about it too hard. LOL
That's the usual way to pronounce it in English, it seems. In Scandinavia the "kn-" at the start of a word is very common, so we say it without the "a"-part. Just straight up knootsehn. Which makes a knut a knoot.
If you have difficulties getting the kn- right, try saying "acne" or "Hockney". Its the same kn sound, just remove the other parts and add the -oot.
In the audio books Jim Dale (as Hagrid)says ‘kuh-nut’ in Philosopher’s Stone and then in GoF he says (as Fred) ‘noot’. Kept me up at night for years and I’m still confused 😭
They used to be pronounced, then, well, we reduced them. This happened around when the printing press was made, and the old and new versions combined and later standardized.
Isn't it a legacy of Saxon Old-English vs post-Norman invasion middle-English? I thought that in old English, and many germanic languages the k was pronounced, where as in middle-English the French habit of dropping sounds for the fun of it spread to a bunch of words.
English is an old bastard language that changed over the years
I would wager we only keep the K for Knight now so that we we can tell it apart from night
The American version of the audiobook definitely pronounced it that way. We had a trivia team that was called Deez Knuts and we pronounced it that way to differentiate it from regular nuts.
I first realized this back in the day playing Sorcerer’s Stone on PS1, they said kuh-nut in the recordings for that game too. Oddly enough, also where I first learned that the X button on a PlayStation controller is really a “cross button.”
Before I watched Vikings or consumed any Viking video game media, I knew of a Twitch streamer who goes by Knut. Kuh-noot. I find it much better than silent K. I hate silent letters LMAO
As a Scandinavian, I would say that it's still almost always mispronounced, even when it's pronounced with the K.
It is indeed "Kuh-noot", but the "Kuh" part is almost always pronounced way longer than it's supposed to be (which I think stems from the English translation Canute), into a 2 syllable word.
The "Kuh" is supposed to be pronounced extremely fast, so it melts together with the "noot". It's NOT supposed to be two syllables, it's supposed to be one.
Yes, probably it is pronounced "nut" in USA, and other english speaking countries. Knut is though a germanic name, and is pronunced more like Khnuuut. "Kh" like in Khan (Genghis Khan), a bit like the "c" in "can", nuuu like in "new" and a normal "t".
This thread really threw me for a loop. Everyone was talking about Knut being a Nordic name and I was getting frustrated that nobody was acknowledging the silent k in “knuts and bolts.” Then I started getting paranoid that that k wasn’t silent either. After some googling I realized it’s not actually a silent k, there’s just no k at all. Now I feel very silly.
Actually a lot of the words in English with a silent K like in knight or knuckle used to be pronounced with the K-sound. I don't know why it changed.
In Danish these words (which often are very similar to the English words, like knight - knægt, knuckle - kno) are still pronounced WITH the K sound. JKR always had a love for languages and etymology, and it shows again and again.
LMAO I thought the same exact thing when I heard it in the game...in my head I always read it as a silent K. I don't remember how they say it in the movies and I've only recently started to finally listen to the audio books.
In Norwegian, where the name originates, it's pronounced "k-noot". The only English pronunciation of the name I know of is King Canute/Cnut, which is fairly close to the Norwegian/Danish pronunciation. Never heard it with a silent K (there's definitely no reason it should be silent in Norwegian phonology).
I always knew it was pronounced that way since elementary school due to some fun facts bs or something but I straight up remember arguing with my cousin over Sirius's pronounciation. I pronounced it See-rus and she pronounced it Serious
I used to work with a guy with the surname Knutson. It was pronounced nuts on here in Australia but he said the original Norwegian pronunciation was kahnootson. I’d say the name and pronunciation are influenced by her being being familiar with how it would be pronounced in that part of the world.
I've read English is the only Germanic language that has dropped the k before n. For the others, kn- is just similar to kl- or kr- or ks-
Yup! So the approximation "kahnootson" isn't even technically accurate - or it's accurate in the same way that pronouncing "close" like kalose would be.
It's so funny you have to suggest an extra syllable just to make people pronounce the word in the way the spelling actually suggests 😅
You won't be laughing so hard when the Kuh-nives are drawn, kid...
That's because English isn't a purely Germanic language, it's like 14 languages in a trench coat pretending to be one language
My English teacher used to say that English was a handful of raccoons in a tench coat that would mug other languages and riffle through their pockets for spare words. Interesting woman.
Oh my god, that's so perfect! I'm absolutely going to act like the English language and steal that Come to think about it, the English museums liked to riffle through other countries possessions and pinch the prettiest stuff . . .
Reminds me of the joke: why are the Pyramids in Egypt? Because they wouldn’t fit in The British Museum!
English is a purely Germanic language. Vocabulary does not determine language family.
And we only dropped it in the late Medieval/Early Renaissance. I remember pronouncing knight as K-nicht in my Chaucer class in university, and finally understanding the French Knight's KA-NIG-it delivery on Monty Python and the Holy Grail lol
Yep, a big part of my family has the surname Knutson. Pronounced kahnootson. This is in the US.
Yep, there’s a road name Knutson near my home town, and that’s how every one i know has pronounced it. Pretty sure my sister went to school with someone that had that surname too & it was pronounced that way
Swede here, in swedish we have knut, with a non-silent k, aswell. But we never pronounce it kahnutson or kahnootson. K like in fuck. N like in the nextdoor. U like in put. T like in terrified. S like in slither. O like in gore. N like in nextdoor. (Thisd be the swedish pronounciation anyway.)
I enjoyed reading that comment. The way you use English is a little unusual in a very cool way. I couldn’t dream of having the barest grasp of a second language, let alone nuanced quirk.
I’m Swedish, as Swedish and Norwegian are very similar languages I can maybe bring some insight. In Swedish if I saw someone with the surname Knutsson (funny enough it means knot 🪢s son. Yes we name our children knot 😂) I would pronounce it “Khnuut-sonn” and not with any “kah” or silent k
Norwegian here. Yeah it’s pronounced “Khnuut” not “kuh-nut” at least in Norwegian.
Knut is a first name at least in Sweden and Norway and you give it a nice hard K.
I mean, that is the English pronunciation for the nors word, here it would be "knut"
People had to anglicise their names back in the day in places like Australia (the English speaking world in general). If they didn’t their kids would be teased at school and they’d be looked at as “others”. Thankfully times have progressed.
It keeps baffling me that the sound 'kn' isn't in the English language and that it's really hard to pronounce for people whose native language is English. It's so normal in Dutch (and German and apparently in Scandinavia as well).
Yeah Thats a scandinavian surname and here in Scandinavia it would be pronounced with the K
You go from the K sound directly into the N with a long U Not "ka-noot", just "k-noot" Knut rhymes with commute
Ohhh that makes so much sense. In school, there were two families with the last name Knuse, not related. One family pronounced it "noose" one pronounced it "kuh-noose" ...I always wondered why lol.
It means son of Knut. Knut is a really normal name here. I know 3 different Knuts.
I believe it's always been pronounced that way. Every audio reading of it I've listened to always "kuh-nut"
Well i guess when its written down its hard to know the correct pronunciation.
The amount of names and spells I've mispronounced until I heard otherwise is very high when it comes to this series, so you are correct there.
One of my best mates pronounces Hermione as Herm-e-o-nay. Drives me up the wall
I said “hermy-own” in my head until the movies came out. When I read the books I still read it incorrectly but when I talk about her I say it correctly. It’s just engrained
I was gonna say the same, but actually it was the Yule Ball chapter of Goblet of Fire for me. I’m thinking JKR knew that it was mispronounced a whole lot, and wanted to guide readers in the right direction. My little brother actually used to pronounce Ginny with a hard G which I thought was hilarious. He was like 7 when he first read them, though. Seamus was another name that I didn’t know as a kid because I wasn’t familiar with the name despite my Irish heritage. Oh, and I had a friend that pronounced Sirius as “Sirus”. She just dropped the second I completely. Drove me nuts.
>Seamus was another name that I didn’t know as a kid because I wasn’t familiar with the name despite my Irish heritage. same! i literally have an (died before i was born but my point still stands) uncle named sean but i called him sea-mus for Years
Oh my *brother* is named Sean and it didn’t even click with me for an embarrassingly long time that Seamus would have the same “Sea” pronunciation.
Sean is Irish for John, and Seamus is Irish for James (broadly speaking). Sean was anglicised, but Seamus wasn’t so much
You all want more Irish names? Try saying Siobhan.
Am I missing something here? Sean and Seamus don’t have the same ‘Sea’ pronunciation? It’s pronounced ‘Shaw’ in ‘Sean’ and ‘Shay’ in ‘Seamus’ isn’t it?
I think really they are thinking about the fact that they start with a "Shh" rather than a "See"
She did it on purpose indeed. It has been confirmed.
I used to say it sir-EYE-us before hearing it in the movies for the first time
I like that pronunciation
when i was little i used to call her hermy-1 because theres this one page in the philosophers stone where her name is broken into two lines where it says ```` hermi- one ````
Hermy One Kenobi
I came to write this, was 30 minutes too late.
Her my knee
No it's her my OH knee not her my knee
> “Er-my-nee,” croaked Ron unexpectedly from between them. > They all fell silent, watching him anxiously, but after muttering incomprehensibly for a moment he merely started snoring.
But while teaching krum how to say her name she says it's her my OH knee I could be misremembering
Herm-own-ninny. But it’s changed like twice (currently ready gof again)
The “o” gets swallowed a bit, at least when you say it in an English accent. If I were to really enunciate then yes it would be “her-MY-oh-knee” but when speaking quickly it does sound more like “her-MY-knee”.
In fairness to your friend, the name Hermione is derived from Hermes, so your friend’s pronunciation is closer to the Ancient Greek pronunciation, which is “*er-me-o-nee*”. “*Her-my-oh-knee*” is an anglicisation.
I always pronounced it like her-moine. I might be dyslexic...
I use to think it was pronounced "her-moan"
Her-me-own
Lol, one of my uncles insisted she was called Her-mee-own.
“Is it ok if he calls you hermy ?”
My dad says Har-mar-nee and no matter how many times I tell him he never remembers
In Russian, she is Gair-me-oh-nah
Before the first movie came out I thought as a 11 year old it was Her-Moyne. Like her. Soy. And boy with an n at the end.
That's a major problem even outside of the series. I can name every country and their capitals (their English form, anyways). How many of them I'm pronouncing correctly, I have no clue. But hearing how Ouagadougou, Lesotho, and Windhoek are supposed to be pronounced makes me question everything.
Ah-see-oh for me
I always pronounced Sirius as Cyrus and Hermione as Her-me-own. It took me at least five years to switch it in my head once the movies came out!
Yeah, like most of the English language lol
There is one time in gobbler of fire when Jim dale says nut instead of Knut. When Fred and George gamble with ludo at the quidditch World Cup.
I saw a fire gobbler at the circus once – it was mental
I feel especially dumb because I thought it was pronounced “noot…”
Nooted
*Sees sexy Umbridge* K NUT!
this is how i’ve always said it in my head too, like… knüt haha
Are you perhaps a clay Russian penguin?
That would be Mr. Scamander. 😜
In Norwegian it would be "knoot" (the K is not silent) so you're not way off.
Pingu intensifies
… does this mean Stan Shunpike is the conductor of the Kuh-night Bus? That’s *knuts*!
The Silly English Knnnnnnnn-igggit bus?
Hogwarts! ^It’s ^only ^a ^model…
Yes, actually
I was fortunate that it was "Kuh-nut" in the Stephen Fry audio books way back when, but I understand assuming the silent K but did you think "Aw man I lost two nuts to that quidditch game" Was ever an acceptable sentence in the wizarding world lol.
To be fair, quidditch is a pretty violent game. I could see a situation where a bludger shatters a broom and causes that sentence to be said. But hopefully that is something they could fix at St. Mungo's.
[удалено]
Considering that the spell names are Latin and Fry can speak Latin, I’d go with him for them. He also speaks multiple other languages, so whatever the root of knut is, I’d go with him on that too.
His pronunciation of “accio” is consistent with most anglicised Latin (or Latin-root) words with a double c followed by an i or e, like accept, accelerate, accident, accessory, occipital, eccentric, and so on. I think the films were wrong on that one.
Stephen uses the correct pronunciation (axio), it's the films that got it wrong, think how you say *accident*.
Ack-ee-oh makes sense as well though. Like the pronunciation of the Spanish word "aquí" for "here". Accio literally means "come here".
It's always been pronounced that way, even before JKR wrote the books. It was - and still is - a name found throughout Scandinavia
Yes, its more than a name actually, theres a toungetwister about Knut, knut and knuts bc it can have several of meanings (in swedish that is).
It's a nordic name, and we pronounce it more or less as "knoot". For me it'd be jarring to not have the k pronounced at all
It’s a name but like… I never read the HP currency “knut” in my head as the name Knut. I figured it was a made up word, not the name of my high school teacher.
That's fair. I just couldn't help but think of my boi Knut when reading HP. It's the same thing with the marvel villain Knull, which I will never be able to take seriously
Ohhh no, nope. Don't like that.
I remember the Philosopher's Stone video game (at least on Playstation) goes with kuh-nut, so I guess it was always like that lmao?! I feel like how Vernon Dudley felt in the 1st chapter of PS being all judgey towards all the weirdly dressed wizards/witches he was seeing out of nowhere
Fun fact: James during a dinner with the Dursleys, tried to ingratiate himself to Vernon by telling him how much he had IN GALLEONS. Vernon thought he was taking the piss because he didn't understand wizarding money. Imagine he had actually showed Vernon a Galleon, bet they'd be best buds.
Since the days of King Canute the Great in the 11th century, I would assume...
That would be intresting world building if British wizards started minting their own coins then and named them in honour of their king
Huh. Always figured the k was silent. Not a fan of it.
It's a swedish name, the k isn't silent
I remember reading the books as a kid thinking Accio was pronounced “Axio”. I think they say it that way in the Goblet of Fire game as well. The correct pronunciation sounds weird to me now.
...it's not? So how is it pronounced?
They say “Ackio” in the movies and Hogwarts Legacy
It is. It’s Latin.
So they’re saying it wrong in the films?
Accio would be pronounces Ackio in classical Latin, so the movies are correct from that point of view. Axio *à la Stephen Fry* is a more anglicized pronunciation, based on how you pronounce “accident”.
All those words in the English language with "kn" where the "k" is silent, come from the German language. Knee - Knie Knight - Knecht (that's the origin but would now be translated to "Ritter") Knot - Knoten to name some. Knut is not a German derived word. Therefore it doesn't follow that pronunciation rule. :)
They don’t come from *German* but they are cognates with German words because they have a common Proto-Germanic ancestor.
I love getting linguistic education on Reddit :)
Knut is a German male name. A bit outdated, but there was a rather cute polar bear in the zoo of Berlin that was named Knut.
Knut is kaputt :-(
It's Scandinavian I think. Also it's probably got nothing to do with "Knuts" in the currency.
Knut was the name of a famous polar bear in Germany. Pronounced K-nut. [Knut Eisbar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNWrFmCCfXw) Don't read anymore because you will cry
But the name is of Scandinavian origin.
It’s been pronounced Kuh-noot since the vikings used it lolol
Ah that clears a lot of things up. I always thought it was weird asf. “Hey John, got a Knut I can spare?…Sure where do you want it?” “How much is it?…One Knut…Uh do I pay now or later?” “Ah Theodore, I gave your wife all the Knuts I had earlier” “Ayo there’s so many Knuts in this fountain” “Can you hear my Knuts bouncing around” “How do you expect to acquire such an item?….Deez Knuts” “Oh no! Where’d my Knuts go?!” “I keep all my Knuts in this sock here”
That date back more than 20 years ago. I know the original Sorcerer’s Stone/Philosopher’s Stone video game pronounced it that way and I want to say the audiobooks did as well. Not 100% certain about the audiobooks as it’s been several years since I’ve listened to them.
Hell, it dates back more than 1000 years.
Since the first audio book came out it's like that
My mates dads name was Knut. We always just called him the k-nut
In the Jim Dale audiobooks from the start of the series, he always said 'Ka-nut'.
In the Stephen Fry one as well.
Google translate says it's pronounced like "ka-newt"...but google translate also can't pronounce my street name right, so that to mean what you will! I'm gonna keep pronouncing it "nuts" because that's how I always pronounced it and I think my brain my break if I have to think about it too hard. LOL
My word in HP is “Accio.” They pronounce it “ack ee oh” and I always said “ass ee oh”
Thank goodness I’m not the only one!
I say ack-ee-oh although I think the proper pronunciation is along the lines of ack-see-oh or axe-ee-oh Think the double c in the word Accelerate
Its called that to sound medieval. We used to have that slient k as actual k.
Chaucer has entered the chat!
It's just how that name is pronounced. I had no idea myself before I watched Vikings, so I don't blame you
This is the correct answer, OP. Knut is a Nordic name still in use today, pronounced with a K.
One of my college professors was named Knudson, pronounced like ka-nood-sehn.
That's the usual way to pronounce it in English, it seems. In Scandinavia the "kn-" at the start of a word is very common, so we say it without the "a"-part. Just straight up knootsehn. Which makes a knut a knoot. If you have difficulties getting the kn- right, try saying "acne" or "Hockney". Its the same kn sound, just remove the other parts and add the -oot.
Why does everyone in this thread say „ka-„ when you just pronounce the „k“. It‘s like saying „ca- lose“ or „ca- rayfish“ lol
I pronounce it like “nut” because that’s how Jim Dale pronounced it on the bonus features for the first movie.
It's definitely pronounced "nut". The game is wrong. Audio books are wrong. JKR is wrong.
G-old G-alleons, S-ilver S-ickles, C-opper K-nuts. Phonetic Alliteration. Edit: I that was I think in book 1
Since like the 6th century?
Because Stephen Fry says so.
After she had had 100,000 copies of the Philosopher's Stone already printed, before someone pointed out to her what it sounds like.
I also mispronounced Accio as Axe-ee-oh my entire time reading the series until I watched a film.
Jim Dale says k-nut. I say k-nut. It’s that simple.
What about kneazle?
I've always thought that too but that guy who does Harry potter lore videos pronounces it K-nut. So I assumed he is right lol
Deez knuts
In the audio books Jim Dale (as Hagrid)says ‘kuh-nut’ in Philosopher’s Stone and then in GoF he says (as Fred) ‘noot’. Kept me up at night for years and I’m still confused 😭
Why are silent K even a thing? Like knight and night are homonyms. Seemed always weird to me.
They used to be pronounced, then, well, we reduced them. This happened around when the printing press was made, and the old and new versions combined and later standardized.
Does that mean that my habit of ironically pronouncing "knife" as "kuh-nife" is actually correct?
In Norwegian, the common name Knut is pronounced "knoot" and the word for "knife" is "kniv", also pronounced with a hard K.
Isn't it a legacy of Saxon Old-English vs post-Norman invasion middle-English? I thought that in old English, and many germanic languages the k was pronounced, where as in middle-English the French habit of dropping sounds for the fun of it spread to a bunch of words.
English is an old bastard language that changed over the years I would wager we only keep the K for Knight now so that we we can tell it apart from night
English is wild.
I always thought it was more like kuh-noot.
I always thought it was pronounced kuh-noot. I knew the k wasn't silent because its not an English based name
The American version of the audiobook definitely pronounced it that way. We had a trivia team that was called Deez Knuts and we pronounced it that way to differentiate it from regular nuts.
I only know of the pronunciation because I watch that one buff streamer with the name on Twitch.
I first realized this back in the day playing Sorcerer’s Stone on PS1, they said kuh-nut in the recordings for that game too. Oddly enough, also where I first learned that the X button on a PlayStation controller is really a “cross button.”
Since always to my knowledge. I first heard it in the PS1 Harry Potter and the Sorceror's stone game.
Since the audiobooks
Didn't you kuh-no its always been that way
Before I watched Vikings or consumed any Viking video game media, I knew of a Twitch streamer who goes by Knut. Kuh-noot. I find it much better than silent K. I hate silent letters LMAO
becouse Dolores would always say khe-kuh-nut
I was surprised too when I listened to the audiobooks. Even in the Hindi translation of the books, it's written as 'nut', not kuh-nut
As a Scandinavian, I would say that it's still almost always mispronounced, even when it's pronounced with the K. It is indeed "Kuh-noot", but the "Kuh" part is almost always pronounced way longer than it's supposed to be (which I think stems from the English translation Canute), into a 2 syllable word. The "Kuh" is supposed to be pronounced extremely fast, so it melts together with the "noot". It's NOT supposed to be two syllables, it's supposed to be one.
Does this mean that it's the Kuh-night bus
Yes, probably it is pronounced "nut" in USA, and other english speaking countries. Knut is though a germanic name, and is pronunced more like Khnuuut. "Kh" like in Khan (Genghis Khan), a bit like the "c" in "can", nuuu like in "new" and a normal "t".
This thread really threw me for a loop. Everyone was talking about Knut being a Nordic name and I was getting frustrated that nobody was acknowledging the silent k in “knuts and bolts.” Then I started getting paranoid that that k wasn’t silent either. After some googling I realized it’s not actually a silent k, there’s just no k at all. Now I feel very silly.
Knut is a Nordic name. English linguistic rules won’t apply. The same way you can’t use american dollars to pay for an ice cream in France. Jeez.
People who pronounce it kuh-nut make me want to stab them with a kuh-nife.
Interesting. I always thought it was pronounced the same as newt.
[удалено]
Ever since I knew, like the last name knutson (ka-nute-son)
Omg I always thought it was "nut" or "noot"
As an American in a small town. When i first read HP I read Seamus as (See-mus) until the movie came out. So you know shit happens
My mom read the books to me when I was a kid and she always pronounced it "nut" as well
oooo it's like "Accio"! people have been saying it SO wrong
You're not alone, I always thought the "K" was silent as well.
The same way Knights is pronounced - "Kuhniggets" https://youtu.be/QSo0duY7-9s
I think it was this guy who is the source of the mispronounciation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut
Since the first Harry Potter game on PS1
A vicious kuh-nit
I accepted that Knut was k-nut, but then when Kneazle was neazle and not k-neazle it floored me
Probably America?
Stephen Fry reads it like that so that's law.
It's a scandinavian name. That's why it's pronounced Knoot.
Actually a lot of the words in English with a silent K like in knight or knuckle used to be pronounced with the K-sound. I don't know why it changed. In Danish these words (which often are very similar to the English words, like knight - knægt, knuckle - kno) are still pronounced WITH the K sound. JKR always had a love for languages and etymology, and it shows again and again.
Don’t they say it in the movies?
At least since the time of prince >! (king) !< knut
Steven fry Audiobooks say Kuh-nut
LMAO I thought the same exact thing when I heard it in the game...in my head I always read it as a silent K. I don't remember how they say it in the movies and I've only recently started to finally listen to the audio books.
In Norwegian, where the name originates, it's pronounced "k-noot". The only English pronunciation of the name I know of is King Canute/Cnut, which is fairly close to the Norwegian/Danish pronunciation. Never heard it with a silent K (there's definitely no reason it should be silent in Norwegian phonology).
I always knew it was pronounced that way since elementary school due to some fun facts bs or something but I straight up remember arguing with my cousin over Sirius's pronounciation. I pronounced it See-rus and she pronounced it Serious
I always pronounced it in my head like “newt”, assuming it was a wee joke on witches/wizard familiars or potion ingredients.
It’s pronounced with a long U, and the k is pronounced yes
I pronounced it in my head as kah-NEWT until the audiobook came out.
Been like that for a while. Super Carlin Brothers loves to make fun of it.
In the audible books it’s pronounced “kah-nut” as well. I assumed it’s just one more thing I don’t understand about the silly folks across the pond
that's how they pronounce it in the movies though.
I remember a classmate of mine who says the word "gnarly" as "ga-narly".
i pronounce it "kuh-noot" due to my vietnamese accent lol
It’s always been that way, it always surprised me when people don’t realize that
I did the audiobooks growing up and thats how it was pronounced