ja

My bf and I are debating the following: how does one pronounce "David" (as in Michaelangelo's David). Is it "DAY-vid" or is it "dah-VID"? Your expertise/ experience is sought - but there's no money riding on this one. Thanks in advance.<BR>ja

Book Chick

ja,<BR>Second pronounciation you give is close to it "da VID", and definitely NOT "DAY vid". The "DAY vid" will most definitely single you out as a foreigner. <BR><BR>When in school in Florence, I attended a David Bowie concert in the soccer stadium. It was pretty amazing to be in a crowd of 80,000 people who were screaming "da VID, da VID" at the top of their lungs before the show started.

Maurice

I think Italian pronunciation is like Spanish. The rule was, if it ends in a vowel, N, or S the accent is on the second last syllable. (ROH-ma, fir-EN-zeh, sa-LI-nas, oo-SHEE-ta). Any other letter, accent is on the last syllable. (da-VEED).

jahoulih

The Italian for "David" is "Davide," pronounced DAH-vee-deh (accent on the first syllable). An Italian unfamiliar with English and attempting to pronounce "David" might well say dah-VID, but he wouldn't refer to the statue that way when speaking Italian.

ja

Thanks, everyone. BTW, he's right on this one, but I'm now informed, thanks to the European Board experts!<BR>ja

jahoulih

On further reflection, I have a feeling that "Davide" may be pronounced da-vee-DEH, with the stress on the last syllable. Unfortunately, stress in Italian is not as predictable as in Spanish.

KT

Jahoulih, you were right the first time. The stress is on the first syllable. And Italians definitely do refer to the statue, and the person it portrays, as Davide. <BR>

jahoulih

Thanks, KT, but now I'm not so sure. The Accademia's website (in Italian) refers to it as "David" (see http://www.sbas.firenze.it/accademia), and "David di Michelangelo" gets 552 hits on Google, while "Davide di Michelangelo" gets only 72. At this point I don't care to guess whether Italians say DAH-veed or dah-VEED.

KT

Eeek! Well, I know I've seen it as Davide in some Italian art history texts, but maybe that't the minority usage. Maybe we should skip the whole thing and just use the Hebrew pronunciation, Dovid.

KT

It's also David (il David, actually!) in my Touring Club Italiano guide to Tuscany (in Italian), so I guess I was wrong about what they call the statue. But I do know some Italians named Davide. Does that count?

jahoulih

Only if they look like the statue. Seriously, I think "Davide" is the usual form of the name in modern Italian--but not for the statue, apparently. Dante uses the form "Dav&igrave;d" (grave accent on the "i," in case this doesn't post correctly), which would be pronounced "dah-VEED," as Bookchick and Maurice suggested. But this accented form doesn't seem to be used much outside of Dante, which leads me to guess that the unaccented form is pronounced "DAH-veed."<BR><BR>Michelangelo himself used "Davitte" in a line of verse he wrote on a sketch of the statue: "Davitte colla fromba e io coll'arco"--"David with the sling and I with the bow." He signed this "Michelangolo"--spelling was perhaps not his greatest strength.

jahoulih

I can confirm now (thanks to the Oxford-Duden dictionary) that Italian stresses the first syllable in both "David" (DAH-veed) and "Davide" (DAH-vee-deh).