Let's pronounce "Genasi"

[Scribble]

Reminds me of one of my former DMs who pronounced "Lich" as Lick (like in Lichtenstein), rather than Litch, as the rest of the group did. I'm not sure if he was right or not, to this day. We had a lot of trouble taking something seriously with a name like that, even if it was right.

For a while I wanted it to be pronounced as "Leiche" which is the german word for corpse. Seemed cooler that way to me.

 

[mlund]

When I encounter a non-English word in Roman Script I tend to default to using the kind of pronunciation we use for Romanized Japanese and Classical Latin (not to be confused with Ecclesiastical Latin).

Ge = "Geh," since there is no "soft" G in Classical Latin or Romanized Japanese (heck, the Romans didn't even have a "J," they just used "i" as a Consonant, making a "y-" sound in front of other vowels).

Note well that the Roman letters used to spell "Julius Caesar" are actually correctly pronounced - "Yoo-lee-us-Kigh-Sar" and written IULIUSCAESAR. You don't pronounce Cicero or Virgil as "Sissero" or "Verjil" either.

At any rate, what does this have to do with Genasi? Romanization. When you romanize a word that comes from a language that doesn't use Roman Characters (like Japanese), you shouldn't use "soft G" or "soft C" when you find the sounds of a "J" or "S." You are just aping the sounds of the native language into your own script, so you use the "pure" script rather than the exceptions.

Ergo, when I see a purely fabricated word in a fantasy setting I automatically assume it has been Romanized from whatever make-believe fantasy language it came from - and therefore there is no "Soft G" or "Soft C" to be had.

"Genasi" as a Romanization from another language would most likely be "Geh-Nah-See." "Genasi" as a mutated derivative of "Genie," however, would be completely different. Considering the Genasi-Genie-Djinn thing is muddled and tenuous at best in 4th Edition I'm just going with "Geh-Nah-See" until I see a definative pronunciation guide.

- Marty Lund

 

[Hella_Tellah]

When I encounter a non-English word in Roman Script I tend to default to using the kind of pronunciation we use for Romanized Japanese and Classical Latin (not to be confused with Ecclesiastical Latin).

Ge = "Geh," since there is no "soft" G in Classical Latin or Romanized Japanese (heck, the Romans didn't even have a "J," they just used "i" as a Consonant, making a "y-" sound in front of other vowels).

Note well that the Roman letters used to spell "Julius Caesar" are actually correctly pronounced - "Yoo-lee-us-Kigh-Sar" and written IULIUSCAESAR. You don't pronounce Cicero or Virgil as "Sissero" or "Verjil" either.

At any rate, what does this have to do with Genasi? Romanization. When you romanize a word that comes from a language that doesn't use Roman Characters (like Japanese), you shouldn't use "soft G" or "soft C" when you find the sounds of a "J" or "S." You are just aping the sounds of the native language into your own script, so you use the "pure" script rather than the exceptions.

Ergo, when I see a purely fabricated word in a fantasy setting I automatically assume it has been Romanized from whatever make-believe fantasy language it came from - and therefore there is no "Soft G" or "Soft C" to be had.

"Genasi" as a Romanization from another language would most likely be "Geh-Nah-See." "Genasi" as a mutated derivative of "Genie," however, would be completely different. Considering the Genasi-Genie-Djinn thing is muddled and tenuous at best in 4th Edition I'm just going with "Geh-Nah-See" until I see a definative pronunciation guide.

- Marty Lund

This. Exactly this.

GET OUT MAH HEAD CHARLES!

 

[Cam Banks]

Considering the Genasi-Genie-Djinn thing is muddled and tenuous at best in 4th Edition I'm just going with "Geh-Nah-See" until I see a definative pronunciation guide.

How is it tenuous and muddled? Elemental humanoids with a name that sounds like genie? That's more convincing than your default pronunciation routine, I should think.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[demonsquidgod]

I just want to cast my vote for jen-ah-Sigh, or sometimes gen-ah-SIGH.

The ee ending has always sounded silly to me.

 

[RogueMonkeyChief]

For whatever it adds to the discussion, the Planewalker's Handbook says the following in the Genasi entry on page 71:

The genasi are planetouched beings, the descendants of a union of a human and an elemental creature (often a djinni, hence the name genasi).

 

[doctorhook]

For whatever it adds to the discussion, the Planewalker's Handbook says the following in the Genasi entry on page 71:

The genasi are planetouched beings, the descendants of a union of a human and an elemental creature (often a djinni, hence the name genasi).

This is probably the most substantive answer yet.

 

[mattdm]

I just want to cast my vote for jen-ah-Sigh, or sometimes gen-ah-SIGH.

The ee ending has always sounded silly to me.

I think ee sounds silly when it's emphasized jenna-SEE, but could work pretty well with the n belonging to the second syllable and emphasized as je-NAHsee or even hard-g geh-NAHsee.

 

[dead]

I downloaded a set of audio files a few years ago that pronounced several Planescape words. Amongst them was genasi and it was pronounced with a hard G: Geh-Nah-See.

I could have sworn I downloaded this from WotC but I can't quite remember. The same audio file pronounced Sigil as Sigg-il, though, which suprised me. (I pronounce it Sij-il.)

 

[dead]

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