How should I pronounce Tiefling?

Serphet · Nov 30, 2008

I've always said Tiefling Tief (tie-f) ling ;when two vowels follow each other, you pronounce the first one...

Ulorian - Agent of Chaos · Nov 30, 2008

Serphet said:
I've always said Tiefling Tief (tie-f) ling ;when two vowels follow each other, you pronounce the first one...

Err.. what? English grammar has enough rules and contradictions without you conjuring up new ones out of thin air! How do you pronounce 'grief'? Or 'thief', 'relief', etc.?

ColonelHardisson · Nov 30, 2008

Foxman said:
@ 21:05 Rabbi asks: “How do you pronounce the following words: githyanki, otyugh, Sehanine, falchion, reagent, treant, eladrin?” (Bonus words: drow, bulette)

githyanki - gith-YANK-ee
otyugh - oh-tee-ugh
Sehanine - SAY-hah-neen
falchion - FAL-chee-un. I like the elegance of the "ee" sound in the middle, even though I know the pronunciation isn't exactly correct.
reagent - like "agent," but with a "re-" prefix.
treant - TREE-ant or TREE-ANT. Like "giant" (from which the word derives) but with TREE (with one "e" dropped when written) in in place of the "gi."
eladrin - ee-LAH-drin, but I'm beginning to like ELL-uh-drin more. The word is pretty durn close to Tolkien's name for his high elves, the Eldarin, so I'd guess the pronunciations of the two words would be similar. I just haven't checked the pronunciation of Tolkien's word.
drow - droh. That is, it rhymes with slow or foe.
bulette - BOO-lett or BYOO-lett. Occasionally bullet.

Engilbrand · Nov 30, 2008

Serphet said:
I've always said Tiefling Tief (tie-f) ling ;when two vowels follow each other, you pronounce the first one...

The crazy thing about that is that the rule in English is the exact opposite. Usually. The fun thing about English is that we have a lot of instances that break the rules.

In German, an "ie" is an "ee" sound in English. Words are broken up in a certain way. It's more Teef-ling than Tee-fling. Not that there's much difference, but there ya go.

aurance · Nov 30, 2008

Rafe said:
9) same, though knowing some french doesn't help me in how I want to pronounce it: Bu-LAY

FWIW, if you were a French speaker, you'd pronounce it "Bu-LET."

Serphet · Nov 30, 2008

Bulette

bulett (e at the end makes first vowel proocuned

"b-you'll" ett

or

"b-you-lett"

focusing on merging the b and you, bu. Bulette almost sounds like beulet.

I'm not an eglish major or anything.. just breaking the word apart.

chitzk0i · Nov 30, 2008

Once I was in a game where the DM mentioned a bullet. My brother and I both (separately) blinked and, in unison, said "Ohhh, a byulette!"

Infiniti2000 · Dec 1, 2008

Siberys said:
drow (rhymes with plow; if it were "dro" it wouldn't have a w, imo...)

Of course, then, you pronounce slow, row, tow, etc. all the same? Because they all have W's, too. My opinion is that pronouncing them like cow is simply degrading. If I were a bad-ass dark elf, I wouldn't want to rhyme with cow, or sow.