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Can someone help me find the source for the other pronunciation of "Valkyrie" that I've been using?

Silly-Wrongdoer2715
I pronounce it as "vawk-ire" the "aw" being the same sound you use for the word "law" and "ire" like the country of "Ireland". I've been speaking English my whole life though I live in a place that's part of the outer circle of English speaking countries. My whole life I've been pronouncing it as "vawk-ire". I've learned the language almost entirely by myself from casual English media, like YouTube and socialising in the internet. I've known the word existing and been pronouncing it this way since I was a wee child but never for the life of me could I find out where I got this pronunciation from. Every person I asked insist I must have made it up at some point in my life but the way I've been learning the language says otherwise, all my knowledge came from other people. Google provides 0 answers to this pronunciation of the word ever existing and my curiousity just gets stronger as the years go by. Where the hell did I learn this???

19 comments

IanDOsmond•
I don't think there is a source other than your own reading of the word and taking a swing at it phonetically. It happens to a lot of us who encounter words in books before we encounter them spoken. You took "valk" like "talk", and your brain reorganized the letters in "yrie" to "yire", and then elided the "y". It makes sense as a misreading, but I think that's where it's from - you took a perfectly reasonable stab at it and got it wrong. I would have absolutely no clue that when you said "vawkire" that you meant "beings of the form of women who take half the slain in battle to Odin in Valhalla, while the other half goes to Freyja in Folkvangr." But I can see how you got there.
AbbyNem•
Is it possible that at some point you confused it with vampire, since they're both mythical creatures that start with the letter v?
Middcore•
I have never heard this pronunciation in my life.
WildberryPrince•
I've never heard a native speaker use that pronunciation. It'd have to be from reading the word incorrectly and just guessing at the pronunciation because the spelling doesn't even lead to that mispronunciation.
Lesbianfool•
I’ve heard it pronounced vaw Kerr E and Val Kerr E. Idk that there is really a source for it other then just mispronouncing the word
Blahkbustuh•
I've never heard the pronunciation you wrote. I've always known Valkyrie as 3 syllables. Kids are often exposed to the song "Ride of the Valkyries" as one of the iconic pieces of classical music. There's stuff that pops up on the internet now and then that we more or less read words as chunks of letters. You may have just seen the word and missed some letters and the word is distinctive enough you never looked at the individual letters again. I myself made it to adult and only noticed a few years ago the word was actually "foment" (foh-ment) and not "forment" (for-ment) with an R. Foment = to stir up/incite There's a thing at least in English (because of our spelling system) when kids mispronounce a word, it means they learned the word from having read it somewhere rather than hearing someone say it, so it's fine to guide them to the correct pronunciation and we should always encourage them to continue and go further.
GallifreyFNM•
Have you ever actually heard it said out loud, or is it maybe something you've only ever read? Even as a native English speaker I had never heard of the name "Hermione" when reading the Harry Potter books, so she was always Her-Me-Own in my head. It wasn't until the films came out that I realised I was wrong. Maybe you read the word "Valkyrie" and gave it a sound based on what you knew about English at the time?
riarws•
The etymology comes from several different Germanic languages. Maybe you heard it pronounced in a different language and assumed the English was the same?
Evil_Weevill•
I've never heard this pronunciation in my life. I think you probably just misread it at some point and then every time you remember it you remember that misreading (memory is a funny thing). Nothing to be ashamed of, but yeah that pronunciation is just wrong. It happens to native speakers too. A word you've only ever read and never used in conversation and then find out you've been mispronouncing it in your head all along.
SnooDonuts6494•
There does not have to be a reason. r/eggcorns
bubblyH2OEmergency•
That isn’t a pronunciation of it. it is VAL kir ree Where the kir is said like the word ear but starting with a k So k-ear. Not like k-uhr It isn’t unusual to get a pronunciation wrong and stuck in your head because you learned the word through reading, even for native English speakers. It is very common!
PharaohAce•
I think I've occasionally heard it with the initial vowel of 'fall', rather than 'pal', but the 'l' is definitely pronounced, unlike 'talk', and the end is like 'mystery'.
Adzehole•
I'm pretty sure you did just make that one up. I've never heard that particular pronunciation.
Imightbeafanofthis•
I have never heard it pronounced this way, but sometimes our minds latch onto something and have a hard time letting go of it. One of my brothers told me that he somehow got the notion that door knobs were called 'problies' when he was 3 or 4 years old, and that in his internal dialog, he still sometimes thought of them as problies, even though he knew they weren't called that.
SnoWhiteFiRed•
What I imagined happened is that you heard it through media and, because it isn't said very commonly, you remembered it wrong (or potentially even heard it wrong in the first place and stored it that way).
letmeluciddream•
native speakers also learned most of the language from other people or from books. that’s just how it works. it’s also very common to see a word but never hear it and make up a pronunciation in your head that you’re never corrected on (because you’ve never said it out loud to someone) ex: as a child, i thought subtle (pronounced “suttle”) was actually a different word from subtle (pronounced “sub-tul” in my head when i read it) even though through context clues i had basically figured out the right meaning for it my grandma also spent much of her childhood thinking “misled” was pronounced “my-zulled”
BingBongDingDong222•
Either three syllables or two VAL ka ree Or VAL kree. I’ve never heard of the way you are saying it ever
Welpmart•
You probably did. I grew up in the English speaking core and have my own unique pronunciations.
ElephantNo3640•
Never heard it pronounced that way, ever. And I consume media where the word often seems to come up. I can see how you’d come to that pronunciation independently, though. “Valk” becomes “vawk” (like “walk” is “wok”), and “yrie” is some kind of Ireland-looking thing. “Eire” and such. Had a buddy who pronounced “rendezvous” as “ron-de-ve-nuss.”