Should 'g' followed by 'e' and 'i' be pronounced with a soft or hard g? [closed]

In English, words with a 'g' followed by a front vowel (e, i, y) can be pronounced with a soft g or a hard g:

• Words with Germanic roots are usually pronounced with a hard g: gear, get, gift, give
• Words with Latin and Greek roots are usually pronounced with a soft g: gem, general, giraffe, giant

But how should a purely English word (if such thing even exists) with a 'g' followed by a front vowel be pronounced? In other words, if an English speaker saw a new word of unknown origin (eg: a neologism) that starts with gi- or ge-, how would they pronounce it?

Solution 1:

I would suggest not to follow pronunciation rules as far as English is concerned. You will eventually discover there are a lot of exceptions. Anyone remembers that old maxim from first-grade phonics: “When two vowels go walking, the first does the talking.”

To answer your question

"Should "g" followed by "e" and "i" be pronounced with a hard or soft "g"?

• Usually, in words of Germanic origin, "g" followed by "e" or "i" will be pronounced with a hard "g". e.g. - get, gig, begin.

• In words derived from the Romance languages, however, the soft-voiced "g" will usually be pronounced. e.g. gem, gymnastics.

Exceptions exist, and I've found "renege" (re·nege verb \ri-ˈneg - to refuse to do something that you promised or agreed to do) See etymology at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/renege

In "gynecology", on the other hand, first we have a hard "g" followed by "y" and then, in the last syllable, a soft "g" followed by "y" too. That comes from Greek, though.

EDIT - You have edited your question after I had answered it and so I have to add this:

My guess is that the person would try whatever he thought sounded like the right pronunciation for that word. If one never heard the word before, chances are he doesn't know its exact meaning either. So the best thing to do is to look up the word in the dictionary, especially if it is to be used in a speech or lecture.

Solution 2:

Seeing as English belongs to the Germanic language family, it would be a hard g according to your source. All words that have their roots in Old English (in the early Middle Ages) are Germanic.

Don't be fooled by the name Germanic, it does not just refer to German but to a much larger area. Here is a map of the Germanic language groups around 1 AD. The middle part of the red area is where the peoples known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons originated. They were the ones that brought their language to modern day England in the 5th century, which is what would eventually evolve into the modern English language.

In case you wonder, the orange area is where the Dutch language originates from, the German language comes from the yellow, the blue is where Scandinavian languages evolved from (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic), and the languages from the green area are now extinct. All these languages (and more) are Germanic, and descendants of the same ancient language, now known as Proto-Germanic.

Solution 3:

A "purely native" word in a (any) language would have at least two factors to its spelling ("spelling" here may make relevent sense more in those based on an "alphabet"):

• etymology, incl., lexical analysis
• pronunciation morphology.

(meta: This rightly belongs on linguistics not ELU)

Components retain their pronunciation: hang + -er

Consonants undergo pronunciation change for other (or no apparent) reason(s): misogyn vs. gynaec