True, cause that's not how you pronounce axolotl
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
158 points (98.2% liked)
Memes
13221 readers
1221 users here now
Post memes here.
A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.
- Wait at least 2 months before reposting
- No explicitly political content (about political figures, political events, elections and so on), !politicalmemes@lemmy.ca can be better place for that
- Use NSFW marking accordingly
Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
- Odota ainakin 2 kuukautta ennen meemin postaamista uudelleen
- Ei selkeän poliittista sisältöä (poliitikoista, poliittisista tapahtumista, vaaleista jne) parempi paikka esim. !politicalmemes@lemmy.ca
- Merkitse K18-sisältö tarpeen mukaan
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
but you just pronounced it the way I do
Axoloteles?
Pretty sure that's Aristotle. But apparently the plural in Nahuatl is axolomeh so it doesn't work either
Ἀριστοτλ? His name is Ἀριστοτέλης. Totélēsly different...
Haha well the English have already butchered that name with the new spelling. They can have their pronunciation
Not how that works... Things change between languages. It makes perfect sense for common English pronunciation.
Hell things change in the same language.
Language is based on common use.
I thought it was pronounced "Socrates"
So-crates?
Wrong guy.
woosh.jpg
I threw this together in 2 minutes: 
spoilers
Salamander on Anaximander
Ah-SHOW-lot on Aristotle.
Not in English it ain't.
Yeah but the guy in that YouTube tutorial seemed like he was implying that everybody should pronounce it correctly according to its language origin 🤷🏼♀️
Sometimes when a word gets borrowed from another language, the pronunciation comes along, too. Sometimes not. Every dictionary here says we aren't using the Nahuatl pronunciation. It isn't a thing, no matter what some guy on YouTube is saying.
I do prefer pronouncing axolotl phonetically to rhyme with Aristotle.
But I guess this kinda makes me curious about the Nahuatl language, why would they use the roman alphabet if they're just gonna change the pronunciation of every letter into some unrelated nonsense 😵💫
They didn't use the Roman alphabet. They used hieroglyphs. The Spanish were the ones who came up with that spelling.
Now, why did the Spanish decide that X should make a "sh" sound? I don't know, but I can guess. I don't think that the "sh" sound is present in Spanish, so they decided to use a letter that they didn't use much (or at all) to represent it: X. But in English, X inside of a word makes a "ks" sound, so when the word was read by English speakers, they said "acks-oh-lawtl".
I just pulled that out of my ass, though.
ETA: Okay, did a little research. It looks like the letter X is used in Spanish, and it used to have a "sh" sound, but it changed over time.
It's not the x= sh that bothers me. It's the "lotl" = "lot" that makes no sense.
Gecko on a Grecco?
Prepared for what?
What am I lookin at?
Gecko on a stone head?
Axolotl on Aristotle