How do South Africans pronounce "apartheid"? Is there a British/U.S. divide on this? Does it depend on whether your primary language is Afrikaans or not — or is that irrelevant?
Does the last syllable rhyme with "paid" or "side"?
I checked some dictionaries with "listen" buttons, but that didn't help me figure out what the authentic pronunciation is. One of them specified one version as U.S. and one version as British, but the layout on the page made it confusing to figure out which was which.
I thought the S. African pronunciation was "paid," but then I heard a Trevor Noah interview on Fresh Air and he said "side." (But maybe he was just adopting the prevalent U.S. pronunciation….)
On Edwin's suggestion, I listened to four versions at Oxford Learners:
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UK: side
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US: side
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UK: paid
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US: paid
(Here I'm just notating the vowel sound, not the final consonant, which I don't care about.)
Primary question: Why are there two versions, and which one is more authentically South African?
Secondary question 1: What factors, if any, of the language panorama of South Africa might have been involved in the derivation of these two variants?
Secondary question 2: Can I use the term "etymology" for pronunciation, or is it only for meanings?
Best Answer
I read -about 30 years ago,from an authoritative South African source, that the word is -(was?)- pronounced,"apart-hate". Nasty, hey, but quite fitting considering its disgusting meaning.