Summary
The consensus pronunciation of antifa is “an·TEE·fa” – like Queen Latifah.
Details
(UPDATED) You can pronounce antifascist any number of ways according to national dialect and idiolect. I use a nasal alveolar flap, hence [ˌæɾ᷈iˈfæʃɪst].
A shortened form now in common use is antifa. How do you pronounce it?
Logically you’d use your native pronunciation of antifascist and knock off the last syllable. But that’s a complete non-starter. It would leave me with [ˌæɾ᷈iˈfæ] – strong stress at the end of the word and the same vowel as in cat. Like a teenager leaving the nest, albeit with purple hair and no ability to bench-press, you have to look at antifa as a creature unto itself.
The problem here is the variability of words that begin with anti‑ (in various senses): antidote, anti-inflammatory, antigen, antithesis. I’ve heard antifa pronounced about half a dozen different ways. There seems to be a convergence on this pronunciation:
- antifa
- an·TEE·fa – Strong stress on middle syllable; start that syllable with T; end vowel is the same as in hut and is not [a:] or schwa†
- IPA: [ˌænˈtiːfʌ]
Evidence from recordings
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I trimmed each clip down to a few seconds before the utterance and a few seconds after. Some clips contain two utterances; two utterances span two clips in one case. All clips are
.M4A. -
I’m giving colloquial phonetic transcriptions (a joke – you saw how much explanation I needed above [see daggered† section]) and International Phonetic Alphabet.
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As ever, there are more right-wing sources than left-wing. Both sides’ pronunciations are converging nonetheless.
| Speaker | Dialect | Transcription | IPA | Comments | Clip |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooke Gladstone | en-US | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtiːfʌ] ✔ | ||
| Central PA Antifa | an·TEE·fə | [ˌænˈtiːfə], [ˌænˈtiːfʌ] ✔ | First with schwa, second with [ʌ] | ||
| Mike Cernovich | an·tye·fa | [ˈænˌta͜ifa] | Stress on first syllable, different vowel | ||
| Katrina | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtsiːfʌ] | Assibilation on T | ||
| Lana Lokteff | an·TIFF·ə | [ˌænˈtɪfʌ] | “Tiff” | ||
| Louie Bee | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtiːfʌ] ✔ | Possible assibiliation (masked by lousy audio quality) | ||
| Mark Bray | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtiːfʌ] ✔ | |||
| Joe Rogan & Gavin McInnes | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtiːfʌ] ✔ | They even discussed the pronunciation | ||
| Diamond and Silk | en-US-AAVE | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtiːfʌ] ✔ | ||
| Virgil Edwards | en-US-KY | an·TEE·fa | [ˈæːnˌtifʌ] | Stress on first syllable (drawled) | |
| Christopher Wilson | en-CA | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtiːfə], [ˌænˈtəːfʌ] | First with [iː], second with schwa | |
| Milo | en-UK | an·TEE·fa | [ˌænˈtsiːfʌ] | Assibilation on T | |
| Party for Freedom | en-AU | ãn·tee·faa | [ˈæ᷈nˌtifɐː], [ˈæ᷈ˌɾ᷈ifɐː] | Nasal vowel at front, different at end. Second pronunciation uses nasal alveolar flap | Oz 1 |
| Gary Orsum | an·tee·faa | [ˈæ᷈ntiˌfɐː] | Long nasal vowel, secondary stress at end | Oz 2 |
Updates
Antifa International gets it wrong
(2017.08.17) The so-called Antifa International, whose name designates it as a global rather than merely a domestic terrorist operation, gets the pronunciation wrong twice (first, second).
Much more use of “antifa”
(2017.08.23) Since I wrote this posting, I’ve heard a huge increase in American speakers using the [ˈæːnˌtifʌ] pronunciation (big stress on an). If that trend continues, that pronunciation and the consensus pronunciation will be in an effective dead heat and there won’t be a consensus pronunciation anymore. The two pronunciations will them be in free variation.
Trump uses consensus pronunciation,
i.e., “Make ‘antifa’ great again”
(2017.08.23) Donald Trump put a drawl on the end vowel (speech, 2017.08.22), but he too uses the consensus pronunciation (.M4A sample).