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up vote 12 down vote favorite

Why is "Xy" pronounced as "[Ki Shi]{キ シ}" in [Xylitol]{キシリトール}?

I believe "Xy" can pronounced as "Zai", which is probably a valid sound in Japanese.

I would like to know its etymology too, if there is any.

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1  
It's obviously pronounced "Kishi" and not "Kishili". The "Li" part comes from "litol"… – Axioplase Aug 28 '12 at 4:21
Oh yeah, you're right @Axioplase, corrected – YOU Aug 29 '12 at 3:23

3 Answers

up vote 14 down vote accepted

It comes from the Greek word xylon, which means wood. The Greek word xylon is pronounced "ksilon", so the Japanese transcription is faithful to the original Greek pronunciation, rather than the English corruption of the word.

See the answer to this question for the reason why "x" is pronounced "z" at the beginning of English words.

As for the origin of the word, the Greek word xylon means wood. The -itol suffix is added to denote that it is a sugar alcohol. It is produced from xylose, which was first isolated from wood (such as birch).

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It might also have been borrowed from German, which preserves the /ks/ pronunciation for such words. – Mechanical snail Feb 6 at 5:25
Actually (Ancient) Greek "x" is pronounced /x/, sort of like the "ch" in "Bach" in German. – Eric Dong Feb 7 at 3:30
up vote 8 down vote

Xyl~ is the same as Xyl in Xylophone (coming from 'wood' in Greek). How it is pronounced varies between languages. You can see this by the explanation on the Japanese wiki article for Xylophone, which shows the different pronunciations in katakana:

Japanese: シロフォン

English: ザイロフォウン

German: クシュロフォーン

French: グジロフォヌ

Italian: クシロフォノ、シロフォノ

In German the IPA for Xylitol is ksyliˈtoːl, so キシリトール is likely to have come directly from German. Two groups, one French and one German, discovered Xylitol nearly simultaneously, so it makes sense for German to be the source language in this case.

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1  
It comes from Greek. Names of chemical compounds are always named after Greek words, primarily to avoid conflicts such as the one you mentioned. – Zetta Suro Aug 27 '12 at 15:27
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@phoenixheart6 It may come from Greek etymologically, but it hasn't stopped English from saying it otherwise, so it's irrelevant. Greek is used to form words, but they are not directly borrowed from Greek so the original pronunciation is not retained. – alexandrec Aug 27 '12 at 23:40
@nkjt Excellent answer, except that if the Japanese borrowed the word from German and followed the IPA you mention, then the result should be closer to the German transcription you offered of クシュ... – alexandrec Aug 27 '12 at 23:42
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@phoenixheart6: Just like English pronounces Greek words differently, Japanese could choose to pronounce Greek words differently. That the Japanese pronunciation resembles the Greek pronunciation doesn't mean it came from there... How many Japanese people do know Greek? I have to agree with nkjt, that the pronunciation most likely comes from German. The Japanese imported Western medicine from Germany and many words in the medicine, chemistry, etc. category are in fact based on German pronunciation, rather than English (or Greek). – user1205935 Aug 28 '12 at 3:22
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[cont'd] That the German pronunciation represents the Greek pronunciation better than the English pronunciation is coincidental, but in this case ensures that the Japanese is still close to the Greek pronunciation. – user1205935 Aug 28 '12 at 3:25
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up vote 1 down vote

Hold on, Eric Dong, no. Greek has two letters, Χ and Ξ. Their names are Chi and Xi in English. In Ancient Greek they were /kʰ/ and /ks/ respectively. In Modern Greek they are /x/ and /ks/ respectively. So the letter that looks like a Roman X is Chi.

I think Xylitol in Greek is written something like Ξυλιτολ, but Modern Greek has a mandatory stress accent, so that's definitely wrong. ;p

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turns out i don't know how to use this website. – Finlay Feb 9 at 13:22
When you have enough reputation, please leave a comment instead. That way it will be easier to relate this "answer" to the comment to which it refers. – user1205935 Feb 9 at 13:41
when i have enough what now? why can't i just leave a comment? this website is too difficult to use! – Finlay Feb 11 at 16:13
Yeah, I agree, but it gets easier to use the longer you use it. I guess that's a measure to prevent spam-like actions by new users who are not familiar with the structure of the site. – user1205935 Feb 12 at 0:33

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