Pronunciations

[Turjan]

Most languages have fairly uniform phonetics. While words are rarely pronounced how they would be if they were english words, It's usually fairly easy to pick up the pronunciation well enough that you don't sound like an idiot when we attempt the pronucniation.

That's right, these pronunciation debates are pretty unique to the English language. Most other languages that use our alphabet utilize the spelling to show you exactly how to pronounce the word. Of course, rules specific for that language apply.

French is a perfect example of this. Most of us have heard enough French words proncounced that we automatically pronounce the eaux as oh. When we see a word that looks french, we automatically simplify the apparent tripthongs into simple vowel sounds, and drop the end consonants. Ocassionally, we over-apply the rule (the c in coup de grace is an s sound), but even when we do, it sounds like it's right, even if it isn't.

Well, if you actually applied the rule, that's dropping the end consonant, you'd see that there is no end consonant to drop in your example, but an end vowel, which calls for a different rule, i.e., that consonants have to be pronounced if they are followed by a vowel. With double consonants it should be completely clear. Beware of the bulette - 'booh-lay'? *shudder*

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I voted "If the GM cares to pronounce things correctly, and I know the difference myself, that's just spiffy", but with a caveat:

I'm fairly unforgiving of common words. "Sgian dubh" is one thing, but "paladin", "drow" . . . and readings which just ignore the letter order.

I mean, who (besides one of my old DMs) looks at a word like "duergar" and says "droogah"?

(I personally say "dwair-gahr", for what it's worth.)

Real-world terms are similar - I get a little irritated when people say "shukenja" in a Third Edition context, especially if they never even played First Edition when it was spelled with a K.

 

[Nathal]

If you were to one to introduce gaelic into the campaign, then it's reasonable that you make an effort to pronounce it properly. Otherwise, you should have just called it a throwing dirk.

I can see your point there. It would be easier to call it a throwing dirk. Usually, I only fret over pronunciation when I'm trying to get a certain cultural "feel" and I'm picking place names and character names.

Most languages have fairly uniform phonetics. While words are rarely pronounced how they would be if they were english words, It's usually fairly easy to pick up the pronunciation well enough that you don't sound like an idiot when we attempt the pronucniation.

I was looking at books on phonetics on Amazon. It looks like it's an interesting field of study. But I was most interested in picking up a software program called "rosetta stone", which helps to learn a language by sound. I have trouble learning pronunciation if I don't hear it for some reason. It's a bit frustrating.

French is a perfect example of this. Most of us have heard enough French words proncounced that we automatically pronounce the eaux as oh.

True, French is easier. Gaelic appears very, very strange to me.

[/quote] But if you don't actually know what a glottal stop is, then you have no business inserting apostrophes into the proper nouns in your flavor text.[/QUOTE]

...that's bad news...

 

[Olly]

I mean, who (besides one of my old DMs) looks at a word like "duergar" and says "droogah"?

(I personally say "dwair-gahr", for what it's worth.)

Wait, wait, wait... 'Dwair-gahr'?

I've been callin' 'em 'dwergi'! Oh, why didn't somebody tell me? I've been making an idiot out of myself!

[Runs out of room sobbing]

 

[Nathal]

Don't be so cute with the options you give. I can't really choose any of them because the details are all wrong, and you spend so many words trying to be funny that it's not completely clear what some of them actually mean.

What the heck do you mean "the details are all wrong"? I'm sorry if you didn't find my poll amusing, but I think the meanings are clear enough. Sorry, I'm not making a real "study" of this, I just thought I'd encourage some friendly banter on the subject.

 

[Jaws]

You can start with spelling the author in your sig correctly. Gaiman

 

[Nathal]

You can start with spelling the author in your sig correctly. Gaiman

I needed to change that sig anyway. Thanks, punk.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

[linguist mumbo jumbo]It comes down to consistency and balance, I think. If all of your eponyms sound like "Bob" and "Jim," it can be hard to get interested. If you're naming cities "Xzitieaoului'iuoaechik," I don't think I want to be interested. Niether too exotic or too mundane is good. Consistency just comes down to using the same graphs in the same way all of the time. If the name of the city spelled on the map "Xixi" is pronounced "Bob," I can forgive you, but only if word-final "-i" is always silent and "x" is always a voiced bilabial stop and medial "i" is always a low central/back vowel. I'd rather you just spelled it and pronounced it in a way that most players would expect.[/linguist mumbo jumbo]

I hope to cover all of this kind of stuff in D20 Linguistics, which I hope to finish writing before August.

The example you gave above would be "throwing dirk," or even "throwing knife" for my campaign.

 

[Nathal]

[linguist mumbo jumbo] I hope to cover all of this kind of stuff in D20 Linguistics, which I hope to finish writing before August..

At the risk of sounding naive, are you really writing such a book? If no, that's a funny joke, but if so...it might actually be interesting...

 

[TheGogmagog]

I mean really, does a player have a right to skewer me for saying sgian dubh as ‘siggian dub-huh’, rather than ‘skee-an doo’ (gaelic for highland throwing dirk)?

Well, now you know how it's pronounced. You have the choice of going on willfully ignorant or pronounce it correctly.

Your questionnaire is quite biased, skipping from knowing all languages from all history and fantasy, to 'gets the point across' to 'gets the point across'. Ultimately it matters little as long as you get your point across. I wouldn't get up and leave a game because the DM pronounces Drow or sgian dubh wrong. If there happened to be evidence to the correct pronunciation and he chooses to ignore it, I would just file it away in the assessment of the DM's character.

If I ever become President and need an intelligence officer to tell me what I want to hear and ignore the incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, you would be at the top of the candidate list.