How do you pronounce Sheikh?

[westcountrychicken]

Like "chic" or like "shake"?

Twi different (American admittedly) pod casts have pronounced it differently to me!

@TheQueef yes to both I think

Shake.

Ah educational thread for me

Shake, not chic

And 'Sikh' isn't pronounced 'seek', its mispronounced. It's 'sick' with emphasis on the 'h' at the end

Shake

Shake shake shake. Now I'm singing the song at the end of Beetlejuice with made up lyrics

Shake from the Frank Zappa album sheikh yabouti

Neither shake or chic (?!?) ...its shay-khh (I can't think of an equivalent sound for that in the English language sorry!) It is a guttural sound, but definitely not 'rr' as a PP said.

You'd really have to listen to a native language speaker to understand what I mean.

All of the above assumes you are interested in the actual pronunciation of the word. I have no idea how native English speakers would say the word.

There is no one way.

Sheek but I know its wrong and it is suppose to be Shake.

@westcountrychicken
Yes there is. Its "shake"

Shake

Like this

I lived in Middle-Eastern sheikh country for many years, and it's definitely 'shake', though with a softer 'k' sound.

The Yanks pronounce a lot of things differently (and IMO weirdly) - their 'premEER' for 'premiere' is one I particularly notice.

Shake. A lot of how I say words is from my parents taling to me in the 1960s and the BBC "Shake Mohammed" for example.

English people pronounce it shake and a lot of Middle Eastern royalty go to British boarding schools not US ones so I am sure they agree with us and avoid the US pronunciations too.

Pretty sure it is Shake, but there was an old music hall song called The Sheikh Of Araby, and it was definitely always sung as Sheek of Araby!