The word elytra refers to
one of the anterior wings in beetles and some other insects that serve
to protect the posterior pair of functional wings
according to Merriam-Webster. The word is also the name of rare wings in the game Minecraft (and similar concepts in many other games AFAIK).
The pronunciation given by Merriam-Webster is \ˈe-lə-trə\, which translates to /ˈɛlətrə/ in IPA.
Other somewhat reliable sources also say one of /ˈɛlɪtrə/, /ˈɛlətrə/, and /ˈɛlaɪtrə/:
-
The free dictionary: /ˈɛlɪtrə/
-
Minecraft Wiki: /ˈɛlɪtrə/
-
Wikipedia: /ˈɛlaɪtrə/
(In fact, many dictionaries don't list this word at all.)
However, it seems that the pronunciation /ˈɛlɪtrə/ or /ˈɛlaɪtrə/ does not reflect actual pronunciation. Almost every time a YouTuber read this word, I hear either
-
/ɪˈlaɪtrə/ (or /əˈlaɪtrə/); or
-
/ɪˈliːtrə/ (or /əˈliːtrə/).
In the recent YouTube video Minecraft, But We Can't Stop Flying… (no spam intended), for instance, YouTubers GeorgeNotFound (British; 0:11) and Dream (American; 2:35) both pronounced the word as /ɪˈlaɪtrə/ (or /əˈlaɪtrə/). In another Minecraft video, YouTuber Grian (British; 0:27) read /ɪˈliːtrə/ (or /əˈliːtrə/). So far, the former seems to be the more prevalent pronunciation among speakers with both British and American accents, but the fact that the common pronunciation contradicts the pronunciation listed in dictionaries and other sources surprises me.
Searching for "elytra" on English Language and Usage Stack Exchange returned no results at the time of this writing. Is my observation correct? Or maybe there's something more about this word that I'm missing?
Best Answer
Like many concepts, "correct" pronunciation isn't an entirely real thing. One school of thought is that any pronunciation that is widely used without negative repercussions by educated native speakers can be considered "correct".
If you want to know about what pronunciation would be expected based on things like rules, however, it would be /ˈɛlɪtrə/ (which in some accents is automatically replaced with /ˈɛlətrə/), based on the etymology. This situation with this word is somewhat complicated, though, which makes it hard to be too certain about declaring /ˈɛlɪtrə/ the single correct prounciation.
There is a rule that in English words taken from Greek or Latin, stress goes on the syllable that was or would be stressed in Latin.* In the case of elytra, because the y in the second-to-last syllable is short in Greek, the stress in Latin would regularly be placed on the third-to-last syllable. There is a small complication: the consonant cluster tr could optionally be divided between syllables in Greek and Latin, and this would cause the Latin stress to be regularly placed on the second-to-last syllable.
The pronunciation /ɪˈlaɪtrə/ or /əˈlaɪtrə/ would be regular if the Greek word had originally had a long vowel in the second syllable. Since there's no way to know the original length of the vowel without looking up the etymology, /ɪˈlaɪtrə/ or /əˈlaɪtrə/ is a plausible guess based on the spelling for the pronunciation of the word.
The pronunciation /ˈɛlaɪtrə/ is a less plausible guess: not many words have /aɪ/ in an unstressed syllable like this. I wouldn't put much trust in an unsourced Wikipedia pronunciation as evidence for more than a single person's idea about how this word is pronounced.
The pronunciation /ɪˈliːtrə/ or /əˈliːtrə/ does not follow the normal rules of English spelling/pronunciation correspondences; it looks like an attempt to partially apply foreign spelling correspondences. There isn't any particular reason to consider that correct for this word, but there also isn't a clear basis for saying that it is definitely incorrect either.
*However, many words have frequent pronunciations that violate that rule. For example, abdomen is frequently stressed on the first syllable, even though it has stress on the second syllable in Latin; and alveolus is frequently stressed on the second-to-last syllable, even though it is stressed on the third-to-last in Latin.