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Chaos one of the hardest words for me to remember how to type, the reason mostly how it is spelled is not (at least in my mind) how it should be written.

Do I miss something related to 'CH' pronounciation?

Mari-Lou A
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Salem
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2 Answers2

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"Chaos," "Chiropractor," "Character," "chiral," "chorus," and "charisma" are all words ultimately from Greek and pronounced with an initial /k/ in English. In Greek, the sound written "ch" in these words is written with the letter Chi ("χ"), which is almost the same form as the Latin letter "x," with which it shares a complex history.

The Greek sound now represents the fricative sounds of x or χ or occasional ç in the later Greek spoken roughly for the last two millenia, for which the closest equivalent English sound is /k/. In earlier classical Greek, it was probably an aspirated stop [kʰ]. A few dialects of English or Scots, still pronounce the "ch" of the word "loch" with the fricative sounds as in later Greek, but that is an isolated pronunciation outside of Scotland and perhaps northern England or Ireland. The fricative sound is roughly like the German pronunciation of the last sound in Bach, the first sound in Mandarin hé; the northern mainland Spanish sound at the beginning of the name José, or the Arabic name Khaalid. Some of these sounds are velar and some are uvular and some have more friction than others.

The English spelling "ch" comes from how the Greek sound was spelled when the words were borrowed into Latin at an early date when the Greek pronunciation was probably like an aspirate [kʰ] or a Latin "c" followed instantly by an "h" sound as in the "ck_h" in "backhand." English borrowed this Latin spelling into the modern language, while simplifying the pronunciation to conform to English habits.

The spelling of "ch" in words like "chart," "chocolate," and "cheese" has a different pronunciation and origin, probably mostly from an adaptation of old French orthographic practices, and is what English speakers think of as the default pronunciation of this combination of letters.

Vegawatcher
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  • In the U.S. we sometimes use a sound similar to the "ch" at the end of "loch", e.g. at the ends of the interjections "ach!" and "blech". – MarcInManhattan Jan 28 '22 at 02:01
  • Your comment and your name remind my that in the New York area, most people use this sound in the word "chutzpah" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah), because that is how it is strongly pronounced in the original Yiddish. Some people just use an "h" sound though. – Vegawatcher Jan 28 '22 at 02:38
  • Yes, but I believe that that phoneme derives ultimately from Hebrew. It can often be heard here in some other Hebrew loanwords ("l'chaim", "challah", etc.), both in the Jewish community and also sometimes in wider use. – MarcInManhattan Jan 28 '22 at 03:25
  • It's certainly from Hebrew or Aramaic originally, but in the New York area, there are a lot of Yiddish words used in such contexts divorced from their Hebrew connections, like "schmuck," "kibitz" or "schmooze." Some may originate from Hebrew or Aramaic, but the "Kh" sound is most associated with Yiddish, rather than with Hebrew directly. – Vegawatcher Jan 28 '22 at 03:42
  • That's very valuable answer, honesty I didn't know about much of Greek etymology in Eng language, since it's not my first language, I learn it myself, this may be first time I open dissuasion about how to pronounce word in English, I learned a lot from your answer, I which if I could have, kind of academic education in English. – Salem Jan 28 '22 at 05:30
  • @Vegawatcher Yes, but those words don't have the same "ch" sound. Are there words with that sound that moved from Yiddish to English and didn't originate in Hebrew? (Sorry if this discussion is veering off-topic, but I'm actually curious.) – MarcInManhattan Jan 28 '22 at 07:19
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Chaos comes from greek χάος; it starts with the greek letter "chi," which has a hard pronunciation. Many similar words are rendered with a "ch": chorus, christ, chrono-, etc. Maybe a separate question is: How did these words come to use "ch" instead of "k" or "x"?

Andy Bonner
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    maybe because someone wanted to distinguish between chi and kappa in Greek-derived words (don't actually know, just guessing)? – Ben Bolker Jan 27 '22 at 22:52
  • @BenBolker I don't know either, and maybe should start a new question, but it looks like: most such Greek words are transliterated with "kh" ("khaos"), but when they passed through Latin, Latin went with "ch." (Why? That's the part I'd like to know more about. Seems that "G" is mixed up in there too.) – Andy Bonner Jan 27 '22 at 22:55
  • Thanks for the answer, just want to mention that I'm not native English speaker, and I don't live in majority Eng speakers country, I learn the language my self, mostly from the internet/trial and error and memories every word from Google Translator, So to people who down vote my question easy on me, at least explain to me why. – Salem Jan 28 '22 at 04:40
  • @AndyBonner So far as I know the Latin alphabet (or the Italian alphabet until recently) did not have a 'k' so people writing in Latin had to find another way of writing a 'hard c'. Italian still does this and only uses 'k' for words adopted from other languages like English. Think of the region and wine Chianti which is pronounced 'Kianti'. If there was no 'h' then the 'c' would be pronounced with an English 'ch' sound becasue it is followed by an 'i'. Spelling conventions vary with language. – BoldBen Jan 28 '22 at 11:15
  • @Salem 1) By the way, there's also an English Language Learners stack exchange site. It's a good place, in the future, for the kinds of questions common to people who are learning the language. 2) If you're new to Stack Exchange in general, I suggest taking the tour. 3) Don't let down votes dismay you; it's not personal. They are perhaps misused often in situations that ought to be close votes instead, and I prefer to reserve them for experienced users who ought to know the site's procedures. In this case,... – Andy Bonner Jan 28 '22 at 13:56
  • @Salem if you hover over the up and down arrows, you'll see that the up arrow is labeled with "This shows research effort; it is useful and clear." Various Stack Exchange sites have varying policies about how much they absolutely require that you show some research, but they all appreciate it. (For one thing, it lets us give better answers if we know what you've already found out.) For your question, the answer to "why is the 'ch' hard" is basically "because it's from Greek," and that can be found quickly in most dictionaries or EtymOnline. Personally, ... – Andy Bonner Jan 28 '22 at 14:01
  • @Salem ... I can't fault you for not knowing its language of origin, but in the future, it's a good idea to first look up your word, and if what you find doesn't solve your question or confuses you, to mention that research and how it failed to resolve things in your question. There's also an unrelated reason for a close vote: Mari-Lou found that there's an earlier version of the same question (it has good answers, too!). Stack Exchange tries to avoid such "duplicates," so that you can find all the helpful information in one place. – Andy Bonner Jan 28 '22 at 14:06