So, according to the Wikipedia discussion of the etymology of “Cerberus”…
“The name ‘Cerberus’ is a Latinised version of the Greek Kerberos.”
So, that says to me that if you spell it with a ‘C’ then its pronouned “Sir-bur-oos” and if you spell it with a ‘K’ then it’s pronounced “Care Bear oos”.
Except that classical Latin pronounces the C as a K. English started mispronouncing it as an S eventually, after the black plague took out most of the aristocracy in England, and the commoners who rose to fill the gaps began to try and pronounce things with a “french sounding” accent, to try and belie their commoner origins. But they mispronounced Cerebus mostly out of an illiteracy of Latin and Greek.
But I still dont think that is right. It’s like 200 years from now, if “Axe me a question” is deemed “acceptable” because of common usage.
(This is only applicable if you are intending to name it after the legendary creature. If it is named after some other cerberus, then I guess it should be pronounecable any way you want, lol.)
I gotta go with @ devhammer on this one as I heard the Greeks sold the pronunciation rights to this in order to try to raise some much needed capital for their country, so Sir-ber-us it is to the highest bidder in the back row.
@ mtylerjr - I agree with you regarding Classical Latin vs. Medieval Latin. Despite it sounding cooler as Sir-ber-us vs. Ker-ber-oos, Classical Latin pronunciation is always dismissed for the Medieval Latin pronunciation.
Take, for instance, Veni, Vedi, Vici. We usually pronounce it Venee, Veedee, Veechi, when, in fact, Classical Latin it would be When-nee, Wee-dee, Weekee.
That is also why the German Kaiser came from Latin Caesar. They are basically pronounced the same.
