How do YOU pronounce "Cthulhu"?

[Sado]

I've always wondered if I had it right.

 

[Masked Otaku]

I've always wondered if I had it right.

Ka'thoo'loo

 

[Wyn A'rienh]

Ka'thoo'loo

Ditto.

 

[painandgreed]

Ka-thool-hu

...but it really is unpronouncable in the proper manner unless you have a half-human/half-fish throat of a deep one.

 

[shadowbloodmoon]

The same, but I've heard it pronounced 'ka'too'loo' as well.

 

[Masked Otaku]

Ka-thool-hu

...but it really is unpronouncable in the proper manner unless you have a half-human/half-fish throat of a deep one.

I've also heard it pronounced that way.


How was it they pronounced it on Justice League animation?

 

[SilentJay]

I pronounced it the same as the others (kah-thoo-lu), however, it's supposed to be pronounced something like Kuh-TOO-lu, with the 'kuh' sounding like you're clearing your throat. Lovecraft intended it to be unpronouncable by humans, and that was the closest he could get. Personally, I find my pronounciation easier on my throat, so I go with it.

It's kind of like Feng Shui, with which the popular pronounciation isn't really all that close to the proper one.

 

[KaosDevice]

I'm on board with the gang and that's the pronounciation that Chaosium endorses in the CoC RPG. ftaghn is the one I have problems with.

 

[painandgreed]

Cut frm another such discussion:

In a letter of July 23, 1914, to the the fantasy and horror writer Duane Rimel (1915-1996), Lovecraft wrote that "Cthulhu" was "supposed to represent a fumbling human attempt to catch the phonetics of an absolutely nonhuman word. The name of the hellish entity was invented by beings whose vocal organs were not like man's, hence it has no relation to the human speech equipment. The syllables were determined by a physiological equipment wholly unlike ours, hence could never be uttered perfectly by human throats". He continued "The actual sound -- as near as human organs could imitate it or human letters record it -- may be taken as something like Khlul-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced gutterally and very thickly. The u is about that found in full, and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound since the h represents gutteral thickness. The second syllable is not very well rendered -- the l sound being unrepresented. My rather careful devising of the name was a sort of protest against the silly and childish habit of most weird and science-fiction writers of having utterly non-human entities use a nomenclature of a thoroughly human character, as if alien-organed beings could possibly have languages based on human vocal organs.


--Library of America's H.P, Lovecraft, Tales. Note 167.1

 

[GMSkarka]

I pronounce it "forum-thread-topic-which-reappears-every-three-to-four-months-or-so."