Quick sot

For any Don Quixote fans out there, you can hear a discussion of the book and its cultural impact on BBC Radio Four's In Our Time programme.  You can listen or download the programme here.  One word of warning.  The trailers for it that I heard this morning had presenter Melvyn Bragg pronouncing the hero's name as "Quick Sot".  No doubt he and his learned panel have settled upon this quixotic pronunciation for some compelling reason, but I'm not sure I personally can hear it without wincing.

Comments

[Stefanie]

Ouch. I'm wincing just thinking about that pronunciation.

[Edward Pettit]

According to the OED, "quick sot" is the correct pronunciation. I'm pretty certain that until fairly recently (this century) this was the way Quixote was pronounced in Brit English. I thought only Americans were surprised at hearing it said this way.

Ed

[Sandra]

I've not heard 'quick sot'. As the announcer on radio four said 'you say 'quick sot', I say 'kee ho tay', let's call the whole thing off'.

[Edward Pettit]

Bragg clears it all up in his email newsletter:
Well, James Naughtie has put his foot among the pigeons. How do you
pronounce Don Quixote? I pronounced it in the English fashion and had
there been any objections from the academics who so sturdily spoke about
the knight errant this morning, I would have asked them whether any
other pronunciation would have made the word 'quixotic' redundant.

For your information, we spoke to Edwin Williamson prior to the
programme (who was tremendous in encapsulating the biography of Don Quixote),
on the pronunciation of Don Quixote. He pointed out that Don Quixote
is an archaic Spanish spelling that has now fallen out of use. The
Spanish now spell and pronounce it as 'Don Quijote' ie. don-key-hoe-tee.

However, Don Quixote has always been a highly international piece of
literature. The Italians have always pronounced it 'don-key-show-tay';
the French have always pronounced it as 'don-key-sho-ta'; and the
English have always traditionally pronounced it as 'don–quix-ot'.

The adoption of the Spanish pronunciation in the English language has
only appeared with the wide inclusion of the book onto the undergraduate
curriculum in many American Universities over the last 20 to 30 years.
The vast majority of English academics still refer to the book in the
old English pronunciation 'don-quix-ot' out of habit and in recognition
of the book's status as an international classic.

So there we are on that one.

[Tom]

Spot on Edward, classical Italian education pronounces it Don Quishot (I've not heard it pronounced any way other than the Spanish "Qui-ho-tay"), which to me lends credibility to that pronounciation since Italians generally would opt for the Spanish way of pronouncing the letters that aren't in their alphabet (mainly the X and J), so they must have a reason! Though I'm still not sure how I should be saying it :)

[Jonathan Hiller]

The Italian pronunciation most likely derives from the French "Quichotte," which has the "sh" sound in it. In any case, at this point in our global life I think it's time to simply pronounce it correctly, IPA [ki'xote] or some variation thereof. As an American English speaker ['kwiksot], as traditional as it may be, sounds silly, as bad as people pronouncing the Pedro of "San Pedro" with an [i] sound.