FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[alfredo]

The IMA only specifies official mineral names in english, not other languages. Usually most mineral names are pretty much the same in different languages, except for the suffix. But some languages, like japanese and chinese, will use different names, and many european languages have their own names for species that were known for centuries (Everybody has a different name for gypsum, for example).

[Tom Tucker]

The website, webmineral, has audio pronunciations of many species.

[Tobi]

Funny to see that I'm not the only experienced mineral guy here who has sometimes questions about the pronunciation of some species' names ;-)

Another example: What's the correct accentuation on "dioptase"? Is it DI-op-tase, di-OP-tase or rather di-op-TASE? The same question in German if it is DI-op-tas, Di-OP-tas or rather Di-op-TAS ...

The webmineral.com soundfile says "di-OP-tase", according to this it should be Di-OP-tas in German. But I think most German-speakers rather say "Di-op-TAS"; I must confess me too. How do the English-speakers handle it, do you pronounce it the way the soundfile (https://webmineral.com/sounds/DIOPTASE.WAV) says, that means stressed on the second syllable?

[Pete Modreski]

Since there are so many ordinary words in the language(s) that are pronounced differently--and especially, accented/inflected differently, when the same language (here I guess I am speaking of English) in different parts of the world, it is probably too much to expect that mineral names will ever have a standard, agreed-upon pronunciation!

A few very common mineral names that people often ask me about, and for which I usually say "just take your choice", are peridot and hematite. My personal preference is PER-i-dote, but I know that many gem cutters prefer PER-i-doh, or even per-i-DOH. And for hematite, I normally say HEM-a-tite (as in the clothes-sewing word, "hem"), but I acknowledge that HEME-a-tite (long "e", the way we say haemoglobin) is prefered by many, and I probably say it that way, oh, 40% of the time too.